In The Studio: Alpine Meadow Repost

II am putting up another lesson from my “90 paintings in 90 days” series, I think they came along so fast when I was doing them that perhaps I didn’t give you all enough time to really focus on them.  I am going back through a few of my older posts and re-posting them.  I think you will enjoy them.  Steve In this painting I tried to get the clouds reflected in the water, using lots of white paper and textured brushwork.  I used bright blues in the sky and water and really used dark greens for the trees to play against the yellow greens of the marshes.  I left a lot more white around the paper again trying to just capture the impression of light everywhere.  The entire painting was painted using a number 16 and 12 round brush.  Have a good time and don’t over mix the colors let them really sing.

Paint the sky leaving a lots of white shapes for the clouds, go right ahead and paint the water trying to reflect the color of the sky and leaving white paper for the reflected clouds.  Then while it is still damp reflect the trees and marsh grasses in the water, just remember whatever colors you reflect need to be in the area above the water. Paint the tops of the mountains using a small round, yes I lied, I used a number 10 round for this piece, leave some white areas for snow cover.  The color I mixed was a cobalt blue, burnt sienna and permanent rose.

UsinUsing a number 12 or 16 round paint the trees, with a dark green mix of new gamboge, ultramarine blue and thalo yellow green for some of the light areas.  Let some light pop through and make the edges and form varied, try not to just find one mark and stick with it really create variety and expressiveness.  Brush in some cool green colors at the bottom edge of the mountains, I mixed this color with a variety of mixes from olive green, cobalt blue, and raw sienna.  Paint the foreground with new gamboge, raw sienna, ultramarine blue, and some burnt sienna, use the side of your brush to really get nice weeds with texture.

detail of mountains and trees

Put in some dark accents and the figures.

Detail of the water, the figures, mountains and clouds, you can see that again I kept things pretty loose.  I know that this program of 90 paintings in 90 days seems daunting and exhausting but the benefits are really worth it.  I know that my paintings are much more confident and painterly and I am sure yours are too.  Thank you so much for following along.