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Paint a Dreamy Landscape With Only Three Colors
No art degree, no wall of forty intimidating paint tubes — just three primaries, one white, and a step-by-step path to a soft, glowing landscape you’ll actually want to hang.
Affiliate links · As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Updated August 21, 2026.
You know the feeling. You’re scrolling through Pinterest and you see them — those beautiful paintings with soft, glowing skies that just make you feel calm. You imagine hanging a piece of art on your wall that you made, something that captures that exact peaceful mood. Then the overwhelm kicks in. You walk into an art store, or scroll an online shop, and it’s an endless wall of color: hundreds of tubes with intimidating names like Phthalo Green, Quinacridone Magenta, and Burnt Umber. Suddenly it all feels too complicated, too expensive, and the desire to create just fizzles out.
Here’s the secret: a stunning, professional-looking painting isn’t about having more colors. It’s about having fewer. All you need to create this dreamy, decor-worthy landscape are three colors — plus a little white.
Just three tubes of paint. The incredible range you see in the finished piece below — the warm peachy glow, the deep purples, the soft lavenders, even the rich dark shadows — all comes from just three primary colors. It isn’t a magic trick; it’s a classic technique real artists use to keep every color in a painting working together. Today I’m walking you through every single step, so grab a cup of coffee, get comfy, and let’s get into the secret of painting with just three colors.
Automatic Harmony
When every color on your canvas is mixed from the same three primaries, they share the same color DNA — nothing ever clashes, and everything just fits.
Learn By Doing
Mixing your own oranges, purples, and greens by hand teaches you more about color theory in one afternoon than any book ever could.
Budget-Friendly
Skip the thirty-tube starter kit. One red, one yellow, one blue, and a big tube of white is a whole universe of color.
Gathering Our Simple Tools — Materials Overview
Let’s go over the simple toolkit we’ll be using today. And hey — don’t worry about matching my exact brands. I’ll tell you what to look for, and you can work with what you’ve already got.
- Primary Blue (Ultramarine Blue)Use this for creating all your cool tones.
- Primary Red (Cadmium Red Medium)Perfect for warm tones and purples.
- Primary Yellow (Cadmium Yellow Light)Ideal for vibrant greens and oranges.
- Titanium White (Larger Tube)You’ll use this the most, so get the biggest tube available.
- Medium Flat BrushGreat for filling in larger areas like the sky.
- Medium Filbert BrushPerfect for soft shapes like clouds and distant mountains.
- Small Round BrushFor detailed work like the glowing moon.
- Pre-Primed Canvas Panel (8×10 or 9×12)Ready to paint right out of the box.
- Palette PaperEasy to clean and great for mixing colors.
- Paper TowelsFor cleaning brushes and dabbing off excess paint.
First, our colors — the heart of our palette. I’m using student-grade acrylics, which are perfect for beginners: more affordable, but still with great color. The three I’ve chosen are Primary Blue (Ultramarine Blue also works), Primary Red (or a Cadmium Red Medium), and Primary Yellow (or a Cadmium Yellow Light). And the real MVP of the palette: Titanium White. You’ll use more of this than any other color, so grab the larger tube. White is how we’ll create our lighter shades and control the mood of every color.
Next, our brushes — and you don’t need a whole bouquet of them. For this painting, we only need three. A medium flat brush is our workhorse for filling large areas like the sky. A medium filbert brush has a rounded top, wonderfully versatile for blending and soft shapes like clouds or distant mountains. And a small round brush is our detail brush, for fine lines, the glowing moon, and any final little sparkles.
For our surface, I’m using a pre-primed canvas panel — cheap, sturdy, and ready to go right out of the package, which makes it perfect for practice. A small to medium size, something like an 8×10 or 9×12 inch canvas, keeps things from feeling too intimidating.
Finally, you’ll need a few other basics: a palette to mix your paints on (a paper plate or a sheet of palette paper works great), a jar or two of water — one for rinsing, one for clean thinning water — and a roll of paper towels for dabbing your brushes. That’s it. That is literally everything you need to create a piece of art you’ll be proud of.
Picture this: your whole supply list fits in one small tote bag, and you probably already own half of it.
Ready to gather your supplies? Grab the full 3-color painting kit in one place.
Our Color Mixing Playground
This is where the real fun starts. Before we even think about the canvas, we’re going to spend a few minutes on our palette just playing with the colors we can create. On your palette, put a dollop of each primary — blue, red, yellow — with a much bigger dollop of Titanium White in the center.
Start with the secondaries. A little yellow plus a tiny speck of red turns into a vibrant, fiery orange. Yellow plus a tiny speck of blue turns into a bright, lively green (blue is strong, so a little goes a long way). Red plus blue gives you a rich, royal purple — shift the ratio and you get a cool indigo or a warmer magenta.
The real secret to a dreamy landscape, though, is in the muted, subtle tones. That’s where complementary colors come in — the color directly across from another on the color wheel. Add just a whisper of a color’s complement and it instantly reads as less “cartoony” and more natural: a touch of red mellows bright green into an earthy olive, and a touch of yellow turns a purple mixture into a rich, complex brown.
Finally, values. Take any mixed color — say, our purple — and stir in a tiny bit of white for a beautiful lavender. Add more white for a soft, delicate lilac. This is exactly how we’ll build the soft glow in our sky.
- Secondaries: yellow + a touch of red = orange · yellow + a tiny speck of blue = green · red + blue = purple.
- Muting: add a whisper of a color’s complement (red mutes green, yellow mutes purple) to mellow it into an earthy, natural tone.
- Neutrals: mix all three primaries together for a rich, complex brown or gray.
- Tinting: add white a little at a time to shift purple into lavender, then lilac.
Picture this: a palette covered in a dozen soft, harmonious colors — and every single one came from the same three tubes.
The Blank Canvas — Step-by-Step Painting Process
With our new color-mixing skills warmed up, it’s time to face the canvas. No pressure here — we’re not painting a photograph, we’re capturing a feeling. We’ll work in layers, from background to foreground, which is the key trick behind every good landscape.
Creating the Dreamy Sky Gradient
The sky is the soul of this painting, so we’ll spend real time on it. We’re going for a warm, sunrise feel. First, mix a peachy-orange: a good amount of white, a bit of yellow, and a smaller touch of red. Next, a lavender: white, a touch of blue, and an even smaller touch of red to warm it up. Lastly, a slightly darker purple: less white, more blue, a touch of red.
Dampen your flat brush and start with the peach at the bottom third of the canvas, in big horizontal strokes. Without rinsing, pick up the lavender and apply it right above, then gently sweep the brush back and forth where the two colors meet so the wet paint blends into a soft transition. Clean and dampen your brush, then apply the darker purple to the top third, blending that seam the same way. If a hard edge forms, wipe your brush nearly dry and feather it out. The goal is a soft, cloud-like gradient — take your time here.
Picture this: a soft, cloud-like gradient with zero hard edges, blended while every color is still wet.
Adding the Celestial Glow
While the sky is still a little damp, add your glowing moon or sun. Wipe your flat brush clean and pick up a generous amount of pure Titanium White. Decide where you want your light source — just above the horizon in the peachy section is a lovely spot — and paint a circular shape. Then, without adding more paint, use the corner of your brush to gently pull the white outward in soft, circular motions. This creates a beautiful, hazy glow, and the white will pick up some of the sky colors underneath so it looks naturally integrated.
Now let this layer dry completely — a perfect excuse for a 15 to 20 minute break. Don’t be surprised if the colors look a little darker when you come back; acrylics always dry a bit darker than they look wet.
Picture this: a warm, glowing moon rising out of a hazy sky, built from nothing but a few soft strokes of pure white.
Painting the Distant, Hazy Mountains
With the sky dry, add the next layer: distant mountains. To make them look far away, we lean on “atmospheric perspective” — things in the distance read lighter, less detailed, and bluer. Mix a soft, grayish-purple: take your darker purple sky color, add more white to lighten it, then a tiny speck of its complement (a yellowish-orange) to mute it into something hazy.
Using your filbert brush — perfect for soft, rolling shapes — paint in a mountain range. Skip a straight line of triangles; think gentle slopes and overlapping peaks instead. Let the bottom of the mountains stay a little fuzzy where they’ll fade into the water. Since these peaks are far away, they don’t need detail — you’re only creating a silhouette.
Picture this: mountains that recede into the distance without a single hard edge or unnecessary detail.
Creating the Water and Reflections
Time to paint the water, which will reflect the sky’s colors — a great way to tie the whole painting together. Use the same colors as your sky, but in reverse: peachy-orange in a horizontal band at the very bottom, lavender above it (blending that seam softly, just like in the sky), and the darker purple filling up to the base of the mountains. Just like that, your water becomes a mirror of your sky.
But water is rarely a perfect mirror. To fake a little ripple, use a simple “dry brush” technique: let the water dry for a few minutes, then pick up a tiny amount of pure Titanium White on your filbert brush and wipe most of it off on a paper towel until the brush feels almost dry. Very lightly drag it horizontally across the water to leave behind broken, shimmering lines of light. Focus those highlights in a path directly below your moon or sun — use very little paint and very light pressure.
Picture this: a lake that mirrors your sky, with just enough shimmer on the surface to look alive.
Adding the Final Details
This is the last step, where the little details really make the painting pop. Switch to your small round brush. Mix a tiny bit of yellow into white to create a pale yellow, and with the very tip of your brush, reinforce the center of your sun or moon. Add a few tiny, bright sparkles on the water right under the light source — just a few dots can add so much magic.
For a little more depth, mix all three primaries — red, yellow, and blue — into a dark, almost-black color, and use your round brush to suggest a few blades of grass or small rocks in one of the lower corners. Keep it simple; less is more here. Now step back and look at what you just did. You started with a blank canvas and three colors, and now you have a complete, dreamy landscape — a glowing sky, hazy mountains, and shimmering water. You did it.
Picture this: a handful of tiny details that turn a good painting into a finished one.
Take a moment to just appreciate your finished piece — that soft glow, the peaceful mood, and every color you mixed from just three tubes of paint.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really only need three colors to paint like this?
Yes — one primary red, one primary yellow, one primary blue, and a large tube of Titanium White. Every color in the finished landscape, from the peachy sky to the deep purple shadows, is mixed from just those four tubes.
What if my colors turn muddy when I mix them?
Muddiness almost always comes from mixing too many colors at once or not cleaning your brush between mixes. Rinse and dab your brush dry between colors, mix small amounts on your palette first, and add new color a little at a time rather than dumping it all in.
Can I use this technique with watercolors or gouache instead of acrylics?
Absolutely — the same three-primaries-plus-white color theory works with any paint medium. You’ll just adjust how much water you use to control opacity and blending time.
How long does a beginner painting like this take, start to finish?
Plan on roughly 1.5 to 2 hours, including the 15 to 20 minute drying break after the sky and glow layers. It’s an easy one to spread across a single relaxed afternoon.
What if I don’t love how my painting turns out?
Acrylics are wonderfully forgiving — once a layer is dry, you can paint right over it and adjust. Treat your first attempt as practice for the next one; every artist’s early paintings look different from their later ones.
Save this three-color method for the next time you want to paint something dreamy.
Your Turn to Paint With Just Three Colors
This three-color challenge is one you can run again and again — try it next with a totally different trio and see what mood you create. Thank you for painting with me today. Remember, every artist starts with a single brushstroke. You’ve taken that step, and many more after it. Never stop creating.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Ballen Blogger may earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Updated August 21, 2026.
This website contains affiliate links. Some products are gifted by the brand to test. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. The content on this website was created with the help of AI.
