My Mystic Forest

I have finally finished my "Mystic Forest" painting.  After my last sitting I realised that the painting needed more light and greater depth. The foreground  and perspective was going to be vital in pulling it all together.

I was a little cautious about where to go next.  And would you believe I found help out the "Back of Bourke". To keep in tune with techniques and styles, especially while on the road, I buy the Artist's Palette magazine.  I have been carrying an article about Jenny Greentree and her very vivid colour paintings of the NSW outback.  Her article was called "Back of Bourke"  I have always wanted to see the outback that inspired her works.

This trip I was going to ensure that I did this.  I went one better.  300m from our C'van park was a gallery that gave lessons to tourists and the style looked familar.  The Back of Bourke  Gallery was owned and run by Jenny Greentree.

I booked a lesson and had my first experience with pastels, created a novice but very  colourful painting and learnt heaps about perspective. Just what I needed and the next day I completed "Mystic Forest"



My pastel completed under the guidance of Jenny Greentree.

I really enjoyed the pastel medium and highly recommend a look at the Jenny Greentree website.  She is currently preparing for an exhibition re Lake Eyre. http://www.backofbourkegallery.com/

April 11 2011 was my last post. I'm amazed how long its been.  Our gypsy life came to a bit of a stand still while we renovated our new cottage in Margaret River.  It was gutted to a shell and rebuilt.  I loved the process and of course my "Country Style" magazines gave me lots of ideas.



Analogus Colours: Pthalo Green to Magenta

It's a great "lock up and Leave" place suited to our caravaning gypsy lifestyle. 
We are on the road again and I've committed myself to painting as much as possible on this trip.

In my art classes I have been learning more about the use of colour.  I am exploring Analogous colours and have completed a portrait of my niece Rebecca.

I have selected a photo of our iconic South West  Boranup Forest and am attempting to use the same colour combination as the portrait to interpret the scene. I hope you enjoy this journey with me.

Analogous colours are consecutive colours on the colour wheel and as they have no contrasting colours the use of black in the colour mix for the dark shades and a white mix for light is essential.  In this combination the median colour is blue (Ultamarine), and is the base colour. The dark shades comes from Pthalo Green and black, and the light from the Magenta and white mix.  Other tonings for depth is the Pthalo blue on the dark side and Diox Purple for the light.

Firstly I needed to set up the canvas with the background colours. Magenta and white for the sky, Ultra and white for the main foliage and Phlalo blue and black for the foreground

Setting up the background foliage and trees was a challenge and looked pretty amateurish.  The base blue foliage was placed in and the distant trees of magenta and purple with white added.  I then attempted to bring in lights and darks into the foliage and forground as well as bring the road into play.  Black was added to Pthalo green to achieve this. I felt that at this stage I needed to bring in the foreground trees . I was a bit uncertain about what I had achieved so far.

I'm much happier now as I am seeing the structure and depth.  Unfortunately I did my usual and created 3 "soldiors" in my forground trees to the left. (evenly spaced instead of irregular as you tend to find in nature).  This will have to be corrected in my next session. I have more of an idea where the light and darks need to go in the foliage and will attempt this later. The detail of the road and foreground foliage will be the last detail

 I am excited about the progress so far and love the feeling of this colour combination.