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Original Creation

Evening in the forest

lightsnow 13 Oct 2020

Painting # 69. This one was done a bit more impromptu. We had some beautiful autumn weather here this past weekend. I live in the mountains surrounded by forest and I've always wanted to try painting outdoors. However, this is difficult because I'm a really messy painter and I use a lot of equipment. I found a suitable compromise in creating an 'under painting' using gesso and acrylic outside. This was also my first experience painting using a natural sea sponge. I found it added a lot of nice little details. It was a pleasant experience sitting out on my porch creating it. The day after, I added oils to the canvas. My goal was to try and create the illusion of sunlight filtering through the trees in the forest at sunset. I also wanted to capture that overall golden mistiness that accompanies that time of day. This was a fun painting overall but I had some trouble making my bush highlights stick this time around. I think my brushes are getting pretty used up as they've lost their 'tight' shape and the bristles tend to stick out a bit. I was using the half size round brush for the highlights but it didn't work so well this time. On the canvas, I had the liquid clear on that was spread really thin on the bottom part with the bushes. I didn't have a color on there either, so it was basically adding highlights to a dry canvas. I'm wondering if this may have been the reason I had trouble getting the highlights to stick. Watching Bill Alexander videos, he always mentioned how you need a thick coating for the thinner highlight colors to 'stick' to the thick paint. Maybe this was my issue. At the same time, my Van Gogh brand yellow ochre was pretty thick and I tried to thin it down with liquid white. Either way, this was fun to create. My favorite paintings are ones using black gesso underneath and adding titanium white to create the illusion of sunlight and mist. It's really fun. Overall, it took me 1.5 hours to add the oils to this canvas.

Oils

Comments

Voy Kay Conqueror of Challenges

Dear Lightsnow, I just finished 'Twilight beauty' where Bob also recommended a thick and dark coating to paint the foliage and bushes' highlights on. It worked, although you need to clean the brush often to reload them with the highlight colour. Else, I dare to wipe off some of that fresh coating before applying highlights.

This is a grand view, standing a little higher and looking downwards into the forest. Super perspective!
Tree colouring and bushes are eye catchers and I TRULY LOVE the background foliage with sponge and black gesso! I do that mostly with paper towel (see my artcile!) and that works as well, although you need to be careful not to load too much paint.

Fantastic golden lighting!

Textures on the path and bark are great.

Fantastic painting @lightsnow!

I'm a big fan of natural sponges.. I've used them in my last three paintings. It worked really well here . Nice job

Beautiful job! The magic of the sponge is so helpful for detail. The fall colors along with that beautiful golden sunlight work very well.

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