Week 16 - Monana painting is officially finished!

The Montana painting has spent the last few weeks turned to the wall...I wanted to forget about it a bit and then look at it again with 'fresh' eyes to make sure that it really was finished and I am 100% happy with every party of it!

I am happy to say that it passed the test! Finished!



After my self-congratulating was over :) it was time to get down to some more work, so I did a few more small studies for my next commission. Everything is still in the planning stages, but it is quite nice to play.



Painted using watercolours




Painted using gouache

Week 10 - Trees = finished

Bit of a busy week, but I have managed to get the trees finished. I had to mix up a whole new set of greens - but I think I've arrived at something suitably detailed and suitably blurry at the same time!

Without further ado...









Tackling that lake and snow bank in the foreground next week!

Week 7 - Forests and craggy mountains

Watching the Winter Olympics has me thinking about craggy mountains and fresh snow...

This week I focused on the Montana painting and worked on 2 different sections:

• Mapped out the light/dark areas of the band of trees - I am not 100% happy with how this looks, the colours are not quite right either, but at least everything is in the right place and I have a good base for the future. It is a complicated part of the picture, there is so much detail in that area and I already know I don't want to duplicate every leaf. At the moment, it is hard to know how detailed to be. I do not want that part of the painting to look like Bob Ross style 'happy trees'.
  
• Mountain in the background - EXTREMELY happy with this. I've been able to show shadows in the snow around those craggy peaks with the pale blue paint. This part of the painting really seems to be 3-dimensional. Unfortunately I am not sure that this comes across in the photos very well :( But trust me, it looks great!
  

It was truly a joy to paint today! I was sad when I had to stop.

Trees:






Mountains: