Large Painting

[Sharon Casavant]

I am about to undertake a large painting in oil.  It is 4 ft by 2 ft horizontal.  I want to paint Mount Rainier in Washington.  The mountain is off to the right, not taking up the whole painting.  Any suggestions how to go about this?  I have printed out some photos and taped them together so far.

[Sharon Casavant]

Thanks, Stu, will look up the website today.  Karlo, the trees are in the center, but 2 different kinds.  3 evergreens, and 2 dead trees.  Also there will be more toward the left of them, that are dead.  (thinking about putting a crow in one or a hawk!)

[Karlo Bonacic]

this trees in central position looks strange...but in real photo looks better

[Stuart J. Gourlay]

Sharon, you can buy Johannes Vloothuis'  "Essentials of Painting Mountains" through his website www.improvemypaintings.com; I did the course live and bought the downloads--the course is superb.  If you are going to invest all the time it will take to make this a fabulous painting, spend a few hours with his video course.  Johannes really teaches the principles and you can view the bullet points of his advice on the WetCanvas Live forum, but if you are a visual learner, the course itself will more valuable to you.  Stu

[Sharon Casavant]

Thank you for taking time to give me some advice!  I will definately look them up Karlo.  Hope you feel better so you can keep painting!  :) 

[Karlo Bonacic]

Hi Sharon, there is some good advice on wet canvas page (from Johannes Vlootuis) about painting mountains...Also my first teacher for mountains was Bob Ross (i know that he was not popular among pro artist since he used some effects and not really teching the principles... but I enjoyed his effects (you can see some of my on

https://picasaweb.google.com/111817575098120447851/MyPaintingsOils

anyway this photo looks good - even better looks real photo in your movie (take care that 2 shapes in the middle (hills) are not too similar..Johannes would say that it is good rule when you divide painting in two - the sides shold look not the same ... Also if you dont know how dark to go see Scot Christensen work (better not too dark:

http://www.qhart.com/paintingemail.html

Sometimes is easier to resolve this compositional problems (and colors...) in small painting..then go for big..

Sorry thet I cannot help you more...It will be interesting too look how this comes out when you do next steps.(I have to go to bed as I am sick...)

[Montalvo]

Oh good people did respond. Im glad you posted your question. It will help me out one day if i ever want to paint a large scene. Keep me posted. Want to see what your up to with this.  Hugs!  marta

[Sharon Casavant]

It's in a corner of a room, that's all.  The other corner is the "bill" desk. lol total opposites.

[Timothy Luk]

Your studio is awesome!!!

[Sharon Casavant]

Should I be here (blog), or in the forum? 

[Sharon Casavant]

Here is my video explaining the initial process.   What I did,  first I cut the photos around the mountains.  Then  I held each section up about 8 inches from my left eye -  held out my right arm full length with pencil in hand and lightly outlined the shape of the mountains onto the canvas.  (not sure if it is conventional way or not but it worked for me) 

Then, I put acrylic paint down with water all over the canvas and started brushing loosely with a medium brush.  My arm got tired so I used a rag instead.  Just cover the board in different colours of the same family. (red/red-orange-yellow ocre, etc)  I was careful not to erase the pencil lines, but some did.  Soooooo, I had to paint over the lines with acrylic paint, just enough so I can tell what goes where.

I like the placement of objects so far, but they may move around later on due to notans.  I still am not sure of lights or darks or colours, but it will come!http://youtu.be/A1urLtuwKC0