Learn How to Paint with Chris Vidal

Afternoon ride

This is an acrylic on loose canvas showing a horse rider on top of a hill. Using willow charcoal I did a rough sketch of the main elements of this painting.

A mixture of titanium white with rose madder and cobalt blue was used to underpaint the furthest hill. A second mixture was prepared consisting of ultramarine blue, vermillion and white for the other background hills, increasing blue and vermillion to darken the colour as I moved forward to the closer hills. The foreground including trees were painted with viridian and burnt umber mix. Trees in the mid-ground were blocked by adding cobalt blue mixture to the foreground mixture, increasing blue as I went to the background trees.

After drying I prepared a wash of naples yellow with white for the background using diagonal brush strokes. I added trees using the same background blue colour. I started to add more details to the trees using raw sienna and yellow ochre. Light is coming from the right hand side corner.

Using a mix of yellow ochre or Naples yellow ith white I continued adding highlights to the trees and as I approached the front part of the painting I starting adding washes of alizarin red, red gold and viridian. Warm colours like vermillion, touch of cad red medium, cad yellow and ultramarine blue were used for the front trees and grasses. Then I highlighted the horse with combination of burnt sienna, cad orange and yellow/white mix. 

Additional details were added such as tree trunks and pure colours for highlights.