Create a tropical abstract landscape painting with Kylie Jane

Hi, I’m Kylie Jane and I’m going to step you through how to create an abstract palm tree painting!

I absolutely love palm trees. I’m from a really cold climate in Melbourne, so when I first moved to Brisbane all I could see were the palm trees surrounding me. I still, to this day as I'm driving along, look at the palm trees and just look at the leaves and how they're formed. That really helps me when I'm painting and it's just become something I really enjoy painting.

Painting the sunset background

Let’s get started! To create the sunset sky, take a thick paint brush and start painting at the top of the page with the Peach pouring paint. As you work your way down to about one-third of the page, you can blend in a bit of Titanium white and Yellow Pink to create a subtle gradient.

Painting hills in the middle ground

Once you’ve finished the sunset, move on to painting the hills in the middle ground. For the first one, take the Burnt Sienna pouring paint and mix it with Titanium white to create a deep orange. In the middle of your page, paint in an arch shape on the right-hand side to make your first hill.

For the second hill, use a mauve colour to create depth. On your palette, create the mauve shade using Peach, Burnt Sienna and a tiny amount of Lamp Black Acrylic Colour. To the left of your page, paint your second hill a rounded, curved square shape to contrast with the first hill.

If you find your hills aren’t popping as much as you’d like against the background, you can blend in some more Titanium white over the mauve hill you just painted to add dimension and contrast.

To touch up the first hill, go in with the orange mix again and paint over the hill. You can add more Titanium white and blend across and down the hill to make it stand out against the background.

Painting hills in the foreground

Let’s add some hills in the front!

For the third hill, add some more Titanium white to the mauve shade that you have already created on your palette. Paint in another curved hill down and across the page with the light mauve colour. If you find your paint is too thick, add a touch of water to help it blend out.

As the light mauve hill will be in the foreground, you can create a gradient as you go. To do this, bring in some more of the darker mauve colour and paint all the way down the canvas, working lighter and then darker. You can again add some water to create a wash if you feel like it.

You’ve almost finished the foreground! To create the last little hill, mix some Titanium white with the orange mix on your palette and paint it in with the thick brush.

Painting the palm trees

At this point, your page may still be wet so let it dry for a while before painting the palm trees over the top.

Once it is dry, take a thick paint brush and use the Burnt Umber Acrylic Colour to paint the first palm tree. Start the base of the tree at the top of the light mauve hill and paint up to about a third of the sky to leave enough room for the treetops.

Moving onto the second tree, start from the bottom of the page and up to the sky. If would like to place your palm trees somewhere else, go for it!

Once you’re happy with the thickness and placement of the palm tree trucks, you can start adding the fronds!

Mix Phthalo Green, Aqua Green and Titanium White and take a pointy-end brush to paint storks fanning outward from the top of each palm tree. Paint however many you feel like! In this tutorial, we've painted three fanning out on each side and then two straight storks at the top.

Now it’s time to paint the individual leaves! Use a sweeping motion to fan out leaves from each frond, being care careful to not get too much paint on your brush. You can add some storks.

Once you’ve finished each frond, you can blend in some white with the green on your palette and paint over each leaf to suggest highlights and accent the leaves.

If you make a mistake, don’t worry! It happens to all of us - you can see a drop of brown paint at the bottom of the page. Just gently wipe it off and paint over it!

At the bottom of the page, you can paint some green grass sprouting out! Using the same technique used on the palm tree leaves, sweep your paintbrush so that the grass fans out. You can use a combination of light and dark greens to create dimension too.

Taking a small amount of some Rose Gold pouring paint, add some sweeps to the light mauve hill using a small brush. This will add a bit of interest and shimmer.

Let’s add some coconuts to each tree! Using the Burnt Umber used to paint the palm trees, mix in a tiny bit of Titanium white and paint two coconut shapes.

To add texture to the tree trunk, take the same light brown from the coconuts and paint some lines down the tree.

Now, if you feel like adding some extra detail and expression, you can take the light aquamarine and add some dots to the top of the light mauve hill.

You can also paint in some more shrubs in the front using the Coral pouring paint. If you want to, add a white dot on the top of each shrub spike and paint a stork.