May

6

October Skies Part 2

Filed Under Carrie Lewis 

April 18.

It took two weeks for the blues to dry and for another block of time to open up for October Skies.

When I began painting again, I started with the trees, working my way from the most distant ones forward and from left to right.

The colors used in this step were Cadmium Yellow and Cerulean Blue to produce the green and Burnt Sienna to tone it down a bit or to create shadows.

The first thing to do is create the look of general mass in broad strokes, using color and value to establish the shapes. I used a big brush (bristle) and some rather wide strokes to block in color.

Once the placement and shapes had been established, I used a smaller, sable round to drop in some finer detail around the edges of the canopies. This is a new method for me, so I took lots of time to experiment. It didn’t take very long to discover that painting a middle tone and color first, then adding darks on the shadow side and brights on the light side really made the shapes pop out!

Of course I always know that working with too much wet paint on the canvas can lead to messy disasters, so I was careful to limit work in this painting session just to avoid smearing wet paint.

At the end of the session, I rubbed color into the meadow, as well, establishing the light direction and angle.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.

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