PART 3

In my previous two posts I shared my process of creating what I call a Custom Illusion Frame. In part 3  I will now show an oil painting demo of the painting which goes with the frame.

The first step begins with the drawing. Using thinned ultramarine blue paint I sketched the composition. Remember you can click on any image to enlarge it.

Once the composition was sketched I started with the center of interest. The first thing I painted was the tree trunk that was catching the evening sunlight. It was just about the most intense area as well as contrast so that in part influenced my decision to start there. After that I painted in the shadowed areas on either side of the tree trunk and then onto the tree foliage keeping in mind that the light is streaming in from the right. Since this is a late evening scene the paint mixtures for the tree foliage in the light are based on orange with lower intensities. If you’re not familiar with mixing color you can read about this on my website page of Learn How to Oil Paint. I cover some of the basics including color analysis.

Next I continue painting out from the center of interest placing my various color shapes side by side.

Working to the left I block in the darker tree followed by the orange hued trees behind it and the bluish negative shapes where you see the distant hill showing through the tree.

Next using various shades of yellow green I block in the sunlight areas of the grass and then blending that into cooler greens caused by a cast shadow from another tree in the foreground but out of view.

Then using a slightly darker value of the same bluish green grass I add some silhouette shapes of some prickly pear cactus. At this point I stopped.

Sorry to say in this next step I got so caught up in what I was doing I forgot to take some extra photos. But continuing from the previous step I then painted in the sky. I started at the horizon because I wanted to compare my color next to the distant hills plus I added another hill to give even more distance. I painted in the clouds using various purple shades for the shadows and a warm creamy white with touches of pink for the portion receiving sunlight. Finally came the blue portion of the sky painting up to the edges of the clouds. I then could use a soft brush to work the edges and blend some of the colors and worked some of the edges of the tress up against the sky.

Then I proceeded to painting in the bluebonnets. The base color was ultramarine blue and the tops were painted a lighter reddish purple due to the influence of the late evening sun. I then added a few of the white caps to some of the flowers. And to wrap it up I added some details to give the cactus more form.

And here’s the painting after I removed the painters tape and shrink wrap protecting my Custom Illusion Frame.

Wonderful Evening 11×16 image size with overall dimensions of 18×24