If we look at the snow on Mt Talbot it’s tonally slightly darker than the snow on Mt Crosscut which is lighter and this is because Mt Crosscut is closer to the viewer than Mt Talbot. This is because when landforms, objects etc recede the difference between light and dark is much smaller, darks are not quite dark and lights are not quite light and often fall into the light to mid-tone area of the tonal scale. The shadow in Mt Crosscut is tonally lighter than the next tier of mountains until we get to the foreground in the grass for example which are virtually black. So if we have a look at the shadow in Mt Talbot the distant mountain it is tonally lighter than the shadow in Mt Crosscut the mountain in the mid-ground. If we take our reference photo and switch it to black and white and then imagine a scale with dark and one end and light at the other, then this photo contains lots of lights, darks and mid-tone Well, this all comes down to our use of tone in which the primary elements are dark, light and mid tones. I start painting Mt Talbot the distant mountain and you may be wondering, how do we make our distant mountains and clouds look further away, whilst at the same time making our mid-ground mountains look closer to the viewer? I mix the colours for the clouds with ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and quinacridone magenta to give the clouds a little violet tint and titanium white.įor the highlights of the clouds, I use pure titanium white as I know it’ll mix with my shadow colours and that I’ll be returning to it later on in the painting. I mix the sky with cobalt blue, cobalt teal and titanium white. Once I have sketched out the scene I start with the thing that is furthest away in the painting, the sky. I sketch out the scene using titanium white mixed with a little quinacridone magenta and Liquin Original. This creates a near black but it means my colours will jump out at me when I start painting this art work and it won’t have a distorting effect on the colours which can occur when painting on a white surface. I start with my canvas panel which I prepared with a layer of ultramarine blue mixed with burnt umber. I am using oils and I’m using the following colours: The slope of the mountain on the right side of the painting leads the eye back towards the stream helping to keep the eye on the painting. The direction of the clouds directs the eye to Mt Crosscut, the mountain in the mid-ground.
In this case, the direction of the stream and the log leads towards Mt Talbot. Having decided on where my centre of attention will be in the painting I then add other elements, forms and vectors to subtly lead the eye to the focal point. Your focal point should never ever be in the middle of your painting as it’s boring and distracting. When painting a landscape it’s a good idea to establish a focal point in the painting. The actual location itself is not too dissimilar to the composition in this painting so it didn’t require too many changes. Mt Talbot which is the distant mountain within the red square is the focal point of the painting. I use my softer pencils 2B and 4B for dark shadows. I use hard pencils for such as the 4H and 2H for areas of my drawing with lighter tones. I use a range of graphite pencils including 4H, 2H, HB, 2B and 4B.
Once I have a rough idea of a composition I then continue with a final pencil sketch. From this, I went to my sketchbook and drew some thumbnail sketches to design a composition.
LANDSCAPES TO PAINT EASY FREE
This is one of the reference photos I used, feel free to copy and use it. I painted this artwork in oils but you can just as easily paint this using acrylics. I have painted these mountains many times as it’s one of my favourite places in New Zealand.
0 kommentar(er)
