Creating "The last Two"

Now that the planning stage is finished I have stretched the canvas, and sketched all the elements in. The next step which you see in the photo above is to put masking tape over the main tree trunks, this makes putting in the far background much easier and simplifies the whole process. Oh, and it looks great when you pull the tape off.

Now the painting can start, the first thing I do is roughly paint in all the tones of the landscape, ensuring to drop the intensity and lighten things up as they go further back. 

I decided not to roughly paint in the animals at this point, will do that when I get the background finished, which you can see I have done in this next photo.

In completing the background I have added in some darker tones and highlights to put form into the trees, also I placed quite a few sticks, stumps and logs on the ground, just to replicate how things actually were. Also you will notice a fence going across and receding out to the right. I put this is, not only because there was one in the original "Tree" photo, but mainly to give some sense to the direction the cattle are going in.

It is always a lot of fun pulling the masking tape off, suddenly the trees just seem to pop out of the painting, can't wait to get some paint on them. However I decided to paint in the "Last two" at this point, when I starting adding in the dark foreground colours things really start looking nice. The next step will be to block in the main foreground elements.

So it is starting to look pretty good, I have got all the tones pretty right I think, now I just have to add the highlights and extra detail. I've been looking forward to this part, especially adding thick paint for the bark and tree texture. Also adding in the foliage took some work to ensure the direction of light was correct.

You might notice that I changed the colour of the horse, he was originally a dark brown colour in the photo but I decided to warm him up into a chestnut. It's amazing how it all comes together in the end, those who have been following me for a while will know that I don't usually paint many trees, but I did enjoy these ones, guess I will have to do more in the future. I had a frame already made so have just sat it in lightly for a final photo opportunity.

I hope you you found this interesting.

Until next week, .... putting pressure on myself there to keep up a regular blog.., stay safe and talk to you then.

Cheers Mark