Page 24 - The Decorative Painter Summer 2018

GRASS
Add all grass with the foliage fan brush, using short downward strokes. Vary the colors as you go, working lighter greens to the back and darker colors in the front. This creates more depth and distance in the painting.
Green can be a difficult color to mix, as it often tends to be too bright. Don’t use too much yellow; lean more toward a blue-green. You can tone down too bright of a green by adding a touch of Cadmium Orange or Cadmium Red Light to the mix, if needed.
Begin with the light green area at the top of the hill on the right side of the barn, mixing Cerulean Blue+French Ultramarine Blue+Cadmium Yellow Medium+Titanium White. Add just a speck of Cadmium Orange if the color is too harsh; add more Titanium White if it is too dark. Brush-mixing the colors gives you a better variety in val- ues, and also goes faster than trying to mix with a palette knife. Remember to use short, downward strokes and fol- low the contour of the ground as you go.
Moving into the darker, shadowy areas, pick up more French Ultramarine Blue in the mix, and add a bit of Cad- mium Orange or Cadmium Red Light to gray or tone down the color if necessary. Continue working the grass in, down toward the foreground. Below the pine trees, pick up a deeper mix of French Ultramarine Blue+Cadmium Red Light+a little Cadmium Yellow Medium and almost no Titanium White for these darkest grass colors. Vary the colors, adding more French Ultramarine Blue in the dark- est areas. Use no Cerulean Blue in the foreground.
Extra highlights can be added over the grassy basecoat here and there, using slightly lighter mixes of greens. Load the color on the right corner of the fan brush and have the paint facing up. It doesn’t take much paint at all for these highlights! Pull with small, downward strokes, with a very light hand touching only the top bristles of the brush onto the canvas as you go.
Paint the small grassy banks on the left side of the pond in the same way, using medium to light values of greens.
Suggest rocks along the bank’s edges with the Barn brush, using some of the blue-gray mixes on the top bristles of the brush to establish their general shapes. Pull slightly to- ward the water. Highlight with touches of the soft pink sky mix on a few of the rocks.
PINE TREES
Basecoat these pines using a dark mix of French Ultra- marine Blue+Ivory Black. First, draw a vertical placement line for each tree, then work the branches out from this center line with the corner of the foliage fan brush. Begin just below the top, tapping from the center and going back and forth across the center line to form the pine boughs. If you need to extend the top point a bit, go to a small flat sable brush, and just gently tap it in.
Highlight the right side of the boughs with any of the light green mixes; load the fan brush on the right corner and have the paint facing up, then tap gently to throw off the highlights. Notice that some of these highlights cross the center line of the trees. On the left side of the trees, use a blue-gray mix of Titanium White+French Ultrama- rine Blue+Ivory Black (1:1:tch) to create cool, reflected highlights. Add these in the same manner as you did for the light green highlights.
Thread a trunk and small branches through the limbs, peeking out here and there. Use a light blue-gray mix and detail flat brush for the main trunk and limbs, and the twiggy liner brush to pull out the tiny twigs. Highlights of an off-white mix, or the pink sky mix, should be added along the right sides of main trunks and branches.
ROCKS AND FINAL DETAILS
Use the barn brush and a very dark mix of French Ultramarine blue+Ivory Black+Cadmium Red Light to establish the general rock shapes. Over this dark basecoat, stroke in the light tops and sides with some of the pinks, whites, and/or blue-gray colors on your palette. Think of
22 The Decorative Painter • SUMMER 2018
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