Paint These Tree Branches

YOU Can Paint These Tree Branches.

This is a painting I did recently in the gallery

and I think you can paint it also.  I was going to teach it as a class, but I thought I'd give this a try.

I'm going to show you how I did it for free,

and then if you complete one, I'd like you to email me a photo of your finished piece to slgraves6@gmail.com and put tree limb photo in the subject box so I can show it on my blog.  

I used acrylic paints on a 16" x 20" stretched canvas.

I used, the primary colors, red, blue, yellow, white and brown.  I also threw in a little teal in the sky and a little dioxazine purple in the shading.

Brushes I used were bristle #12, 8, 4, Synthetic flats #12, 8, 4 and a round #4 and a script liner.

You can cut down on the brushes in the mid range sizes, but you definitely need the largest and the smallest sizes.

I did the entire background first and I used ultramarine blue, light teal and white and I started at the top with the darkest and worked to the lightest on the bottom.  Work your strokes back and forth to get the paint on the canvas and then using strokes in the form of a large X to blend them.   

Here is a video showing you step by step how I did it.

 

 
As you work on the branches, realize that this will take time and you will need to back up from your easel periodically to actually see how it's looking.  Remember a painting is meant to be viewed at about six feet away, so you need to back up to see what you have and what you need to do.

When making shadow paint, I had three colors of brown for the tree I achieved by adding white to my brown and then adding more white to get the lightest colors.  I added purple or red to the darkest color for the shading and yellow and a little white to the lightest and mid tones for the highlight colors.

Things to check are:

1. are the highlights coming from the same light source in the same direction.
2. are the shadows and shading also coming from the same direction.
3. Can you tell which branch is in front
4. Are the branches furthest away lighter with less definition
5. Are the branches closest to you darker in color with more definition and detail.  

The birds should be facing all different directions.  The birds are made with a script liner brush and one wing is very skinny and the other wing is a little fatter.  This is achieved with pressure on the brush and is almost made like a check mark, and then adding a very small angled stroke to form the body.  The wings being different sizes gives them more realism and life like.  I used the darkest tree color and added a touch of purple to the paint to make this black.  
  

Good luck and let me know how you did.

Thanks!