When I saw Sunset IV episode I fall in love with it. I was getting ready 2 months for it and finally yesterday after I felt that weekend was wasted without painting I went to my studio and changed perception about this busy weekend by "firing in" this painting. My hands were itching for painting something not to waste weekend. One change I had to do is one of the reds: my red is cadmium red not the one he used in the episode and alizarin crimson is permanent alizarin crimson which is slightly more pinkish.
Tricks that I want to share that I came up with during this painting.
Foreground: dark is created with alizarin and phtalo green to make it darkest possible color, but not to bring pure black pigments.
Trees: left one was no problems as that is old tree and brunches go up and then curve down because of the gravity. Slim tree was resisting. So I turned canvas upside down and made the branches on it. Does not look bad at all. Gravity was helping my hand.
One warning though: if you paint on the table not one the easel watch out for horizontal and vertical lines as they for me tend to bend to some small angle.
I spent 3h 30 min including brush cleaning. Time flew like incredibly fast and I even did not notice it was midnight already.
@Tom0779: Overall I think this may become more complex painting if colors are not just straight out of the tube but mudded down a bit with opposite color on the color wheel.
This was one of two paintings where I had to erase dark against painted light and redo it again, surprisingly this time I was going into this with confidence without the fear to destroy the painting.
Very nicely done! I think this came out really well. It's also great to see that you added the houses after all. When I painted my attempt, it wasn't going so well, and I didn't have the motivation to try the cabins. I really like your cabins. The angles are really nice, so are the reflections. Congrats on a great painting!
Lovely painting as the sky and water definitely look like it is set on fire. Beautiful colors.
Amazing color in the sky! At first glance I thought it may be a huge fire! Your cabins and trees are great. Real good idea in turning the canvas. I’ll give that a try.
I watched a few Bill Alexander episodes last year and enjoyed his wit as much as his painting.
Beautiful 🤩
Wow incredible! How did you get the bark to look like that on the trees?
@lightsnow Cabins, since they are so smal i used flat brush to start. I messed the first one a bit. Then i realized that my hands dont want to make straight line. Ok, I thought, I will try something else and then I used cut out of the plastic card that was a good size. I fixed the angles a bit to make the back of the cabin to go down rather than up. Cabin grew in size. For the other one I used combination of the tools as i learnt on the first one what to do. Windows are made with the brush. than liner brush to fix highlights and shadows. They are way too tiny for the big pallet knife.
I love your version very much as your version looks like sunset in the forest rather than a forest fire. :)
@Lzicchinella - thanks a lot! I think I did not preserve enough dark color and permanent alizarin is a bit too pink, but that is totally ok for the first time. I only think now that I wish I had put horizon line a bit more down.
@ForestVueGallery - thank you very much. Of course try it. May be you'll discover something new for your paintings. Your liner brush work is really good!
@Froggie - thank you!
@PaintRML - knife, quite a lot of paint and very light pressure and variety of that light pressure and variety of the touches ( not only vertical but a bit under angles too to follow the direction of the tree). Here is the link to youtube video: https://youtu.be/5NuLcF3zMQo
Beautiful as always!! I love these bright colours
@Midnight Painter : I love the windows shine too. It makes houses more live.
@Madame Mouton: thank you very much!
I could not get my foreground highlights to look like Bill's. This painting is so time consuming. It took me 7 hours. It's great looking in person though. Good job.
@Jbay2020: I have not seen it since I put it to dry on the top of the cupboard. I was wondering after a week if I like or dislike it.
I am looking forward to see your version!
Your tree beaches and reflections and houses and sun are really really good. So is all of your forefound work and basically everything else. This is a great interpretation of Bill's work. Question though, what liner brush do you use? There's so much detail in your branches.
@Jbay2020: Thank you very-very much for your kind words! You caught me with a tough question about liner brush. This is Synthetic liner brush. Brand is Malevich. Medium hard bristles. Number 1 but numbers do not mean much. They are very cheap if compare to Bob Ross products (6 times cheaper).
I found a link but not sure if you can see it from your country as sometimes access is cut.
https://knopka.org/catalog/hudozhestvennye-tovary/kisti-dlya-risovaniya/kisti-iz-sinteticheskogo-volokna/kisti-iz-sinteticheskogo-volokna-kruglye/In_1142748.html
and one more:
https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/get-marketpic/1107271/market_Mgm2Y-Vjz4LVyIYy92xIFA/orig
To extend life I wash it with baby oil after I cleaned it with paint thinner. Otherwise it will be done after 2-3 paintings as oil paint tends to accumulate near ferrule and bristles start looking in all directions.
@Jbay2020: length of the bristles is 21-23mm or around 0.86 inches.
Thaks for the tip!
Amazing painting. I love your reflections in the water from the house. Your foreground trees are really great. I ALWAYS have problems with the horizon line. I kick myself every time when I don't use tape..i thought it was a problem with my eyes but I never really thought it was because of painting flat on a table as I always do.
@LJMpaintings: thank you very much! Problem is with the point of view when the painting on the table. I noticed that the lines deviate from vertical and horizontal quite a lot when painting is on the table. I move around table quite a lot and painting moves on the table quite a lot too. I try to be cautious but sometimes it does not work: this time I dove in the process and forgot about everything around. You can see some crazy wavy or crazy tilted lines in this one, but I left them as they are.
The colors are beautiful and the detail on your trees looks great. I attempted a Bill Alexander and was a bit overwhelmed by his techniques. I think I’m going to do a few more Bob Ross’s before I try another
@buschleague thank you very much for your kind words! I only attempted Bill after almost 50 paintings. I did not have guts for it earlier. But I am a slow learner in fact and progress to next step only when i feel i am ready.
Go for another one - the long episode I think is better as there is more things explained.
This is an Amazing painting,the reflections are realy good,well done,keep going!
Thank you Patoex! I appreciate your encouragement a lot! The support of the friends here keeps me going! Thanks!
Hi Tom, 3h 30 min including clean up. Good luck in your adventure into Bill’s energetic approach!
Good thing on the YouTube channel they have few long episodes to really investigate Bill’s approach.
Don’t worry 5 hours or less - as soon it makes you happy with outcome - you are good. I know you like detailing and you can split things in two sessions, whatever works best for you.
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@Tom0779: thanks a lot for your feedback. Yes, you are absolutely right - I used pallet knife for the trunks. They got a lot of texture because of that thus visual volume. I need to investigate if red pigments are slow drying as I put this to dry horizontally and I don't want the dust to spoil it.
House reflections were so easy to make, I was shocked.