Tag: tree

Plein Air Painting

Plein Air Painting in the spring is something I absolutely love. It is so very vibrant with the brightest greens and so many colorful flowers.

Beauty After Fire H1224Plein Air

Plein Air Painting in the spring is something I absolutely love. It is so very vibrant with the brightest greens and so many colorful flowers. I want to share a plein air piece that I entered last year at the plein air booth contest in “Art on the Green in Coeur d’Alene, ID“. This piece won 3rd place. It is entitled, “Beauty After Fire H1224”, a watercolor on 140lb wc paper showing a vibrant forest scene coming back to life after a wildfire.

Beauty After Fire Sky Here is a picture I took of the sky right when I started. It was a beautiful sky full of life. I was sitting where we just finished rebuilding our house after the wildfire of 2023 (Oregon Road Wildfire), and, these are the only patch of trees that remain. They looked so happy and I was so glad they were there. I thought I’d go ahead and put those tall standing giants on paper with their great backdrop. The biggest challenge for me was doing that dramatic sky first.

This second picture is what it looked like at the at the end of that first afternoon. I returned the next day, but of course the sky was not anywhere near the same so a lot of the view from there was more from my head than my eyes seeing it. I added the red’s in the sky after I had put orange in the bare clay dirt at the tree bases. It really warmed things up, yay!Beauty After Fire 02
Today taking a look outside, the bug has really got me and I am wanting to get out there and paint, hope to see you out there too!

Muley Doe lesson 02

Muley Doe 4Tutorial 02

Continuing with the Muley Doe, I lay in the greens of the shrubs behind the doe. Using mixtures of sap green, hookers green, and a mixture of hookers green with burnt sienna for the forest greens. I have to be careful to avoid where the lighter branches are crossing behind the deer. Neutral browns are laid in underneath the doe to give her a solid substance to stand on. Multiple tangled brush branches and weed shapes populate the ground area. Her body fur is shaped using reds, gold, and some blue or gray to create shadows.

Muley Doe 5Details are rendered with the addition of the darkest shadows on the branches and trunk of the tree. Shadows are then also applied under her belly, nose, eyes, and ears which begin to show better definition. Details are finished using darks and light accents.

You can see the finished image on the artist gallery website here.

Thank you for looking at this tutorial.

 

7 Hummingbirds Tutorial 2

#02

Hum Bird Seven 03In 7 Hummingbirds Tutorial 2, now the color begins. I start to carefully add light washes as I grow the vines around the tree. My job is to lay out where the vine and blossoms will grow around the branches fitting around the hummingbirds without distracting from them. There needs to be plenty of bright orange and red honeysuckle blossoms for the birds to be getting their nectar from.  I know it is hard to see from this faraway shot so I am adding close-ups to help with seeing the details.
Hum Bird Seven 04Lower section. putting the vines with their blossoms, all the leaves helps me to see the hummingbird action better.

Hum Bird Seven 05Middle section. The birds are able to be more formally rendered in the sketches as I get the foliage going. It is all a flexible and creative journey.

Hum Bird Seven 06The top section, I love the freedom of growing my vine as I go. this drives some artists crazy but I love it.

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