A recent commission.

I didn't really get into art for the money. 

It was something I needed to, like breathing. After decades of college and raising kids, I finally had the freedom to let loose. 

Recently a friend asked me to do a landscape painting of a scene she was particularly fond of. 

I was really touched by this painting being something that represented a happy memory and what it meant to her, so I wanted to do a good job. 

I started out with an 11x14 linen panel, and drew in the composition with white chalk, as I usually do.  I started with the sky, some quick-dry titanium white, ultramarine blue, and cerulean, mixing more white into the sky as it approarched the "earth". 

Initially I did the distant far background hills kinds of greenish. The foreground greenery was sap green and some cad red, and the tree wood was done with a mixture of burnt umber and blue ultramarine, laid in with my palette knife turned sideways.  I started working in the shadows as a blue/gray.

I struggled a bit with the shadow under the tree and around the stump, initially doing it as a cool gray. I started laying in the tree leaves in sap green, green gold. I added in some cad yellow medium to create the sunlight on the foliage behind the tree.  I decided the shadows were too blue to I added in some complimentary shades to neutralize it more towards gray.

I finished the foliage on the mid-ground trees. 

 

I corrected the distant hills to make them bluer for more appropriate atmospheric perspective. 

I added more sunlit leaves, and the red flowers next to the tree, and continued to correct the autumn foliage colors on the right. The dried grass was quick dry white with some quinacridone gold mixed in. Quinacridone coral and Quinacridone deep gold were also used for the autumn leaves and the flowers. 

The shadows were tricky - I decided the grey was too dead-looking, and moved it back to blue. 

She was pretty happy with the painting! And I will maybe 

be a little less nervous about future commissions. 

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