I recently did a demonstration painting at a local art exhibition which people seemed to enjoy so I thought I would include it in my website. The scene is from a walking track in Napier which ran though a small forest which had been sealed off for its protection. Traps were set for pests like rats and stoats etc so the native environment was making a come back. It was a lovely spot to walk through.

The Process

Once I have found an interesting scene I usually take a picture (with my phone) so I can take it back to work on at my studio at home.

I then turn the photo into a black and white image. The reason I do this is that I like to work out my own colours and lighting as I go through the painting process but still retain some semblance of the original scene. So the photo is only there to reference details of the place rather than provide any art direction.

Having a blank canvas can be a bit daunting so to start proceedings I roughly sketch out my layout with a light pencil. As you can see I don’t go into great depth but rather create a blueprint to guide me.

I then paint in where the light is coming from in acrylic as it dries fast as shown on the left here. This makes it easy to see the light direction during painting and keep me on track.

Still in acrylic I add the dark colours seen here on the right. I will be painting over most of this when I get to the oils just allowing what I want to show through.

My base is done and I am now ready get started doing the fun stuff.

Ok Heres the finished painting.

If you look closely you can see where I have let the colours that I painted earlier come through. Especially the yellow light.

In most of my paintings I use a pallet knife high lighting the back colours to create hopefully a vibrant colourful painting.

This painting is for sale so have a look for it in my catalogue.