Under-painting (Blocking in)
I wanted to start off this painting over a very dark underpainting, so using a number 12 flat brush I blocked in the sky with a mixture of Flinders red violet and French ultramarine blue.
Cobalt blue was used to block in the background mountains, adding permanent alizarin and a touch of yellow ochre to the closer mountains.
The middle ground including trees was blocked in with a mixture of French ultramarine blue, permanent alizarin and yellow ochre. The foreground is the darkest part and so I used a mix of French ultramarine blue and Van Dyke Brown for the ground and Van Dyke Brown with viridian for the trees.
 |
| Step 2 |
The next step was to start giving more form to the relatively abstract underpainting. Using number 10 and 8 flat brushes I started adding more clouds using titanium white mixed with touches of permanent alizarin, lemon yellow and yellow ochre. Dark areas in the clouds were darkened with ultramarine blue, alizarin and raw umber. I gave importance to create contrast between the darkest and brightest parts of the clouds using complementary colors. The distant sky was lightened up using a tint of cerulean blue with lemon yellow added to the left hand side of the painting, the side from where light is coming.
The mountains were given more shape by darkening the shadows. The highlights in shadows were painted using a tinted underpaint. The areas lit by the sun on the mountain were painted with a tint of lemon yellow and a touch of permanent alizarin + yellow ochre.
 |
| Finished painting |
Mid- and fore-ground
A mixture of ultramaine blue and yellow ochre was used to paint most of the ground and trees in the middle-ground. The ground is darker and cooler (with the addition of more ultramarine blue) as you move to the right of the painting since light is coming from the left. Parts of the underpaint was not painted over to give the illusion of shadows, that at that time of the day are very long. The mixture was tinted slightly as one moves into distance. The areas that are hit directly by sunlight where highlighted with the addition of yellow ochre and some lemon yellow in the mid ground. The trees were painted with darker shade of the same color used for the ground.
For the foreground used the same base color of ultramarine blue and yellow ochre with the addition of a warmer yellow for the highlights. I used different mixtures cadmium yellow deep, medium and light or/and Australian red gold with sap green, sap green and burnt sienna or permanent alizarin. The details were added gradually over a number of days, thus allowing the previous layer to dry. For most of my painting I used liquol which dries very quickly but for the final highlights and details, paints were used without the addition of any medium. During each session I continued to enforce the dark shadows and adjusting the saturation, hues and values of the highlights.
| 
