How to create a valentine painting

The middle of the painting will be the brightest. Let's begin by adding dark purple to both sides of where the people will be standing. Use loose, free brush strokes.

Start mixing in a little of white and light bluish paint. Don't rinse your brush, let the colors mix.

Use that technique all the way up, keeping the darker colors towards the outside. Add black paint to the bottom portion avoiding the center of the painting.

Use horizontal brush strokes to add highlights to the area where the couple will stand. Add more black to the top right corner.

We will use a credit card to add a tree on the left side with black paint.

Make rough branches that overhang into the lightest portion of the painting.

Time for street lights. Make sure the black paint is mostly dry. Begin with 3 white dots that line up to the vanishing point (our couple). Then pick up some pink and paint around them.

Don't rinse your brush as you add the pinks. Allow them to mix in and get the appearance of glowing. Add some horizontal pink strokes at the bottom to represent reflection.

A little more pink, a little more white.

A couple converging lines to represent the edge of the street. They need to point to the same spot the white lights point to.

Add some black paint to the converging lines. It doesn't need to be perfect, It's a wet, reflective street.

Now poles for the lights. Us a flat brush and draw a vertical line from each dot downward. Bring each of them about 1/2 inch from the edge of the street. They shouldn't be even or the same length.

Make them thicker and add a little white paint.

Now the hard part. Humans. First let's use chalk to draw two vertical rectangles and an umbrella shape above them.

Paint in the umbrella shape, add shadows with black and highlights with white. Use the teal color to add some horizontal brush strokes to the street. Add a couple heads.

Guys are more square and lady's more triangular.

Fill them in with black paint.

Now use some of the colors from our painting. Pink on the pink side.

Black shadows in the street using horizontal strokes. That horizontal part is pretty important.

Add some teal from the umbrella to the guy and the street. OOO, so reflective. Use some blue, purple, and pink to add brush strokes to the tree.

Add some small details to the umbrella, and we're done!