Although I have sold about ten paintings to date I have never been asked to do a specific painting, and was a bit nervous when a friend asked me to do a landscape painting of a scene she was particularly fond of.
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".
You can see where I drew in the composition in white chalk on this 11x14" linen panel.
Initially I did the distant far background hills kinds of greenish, but corrected that later to make it more blue. 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.
The shadows were tricky - eventually I make them kind of a gray blue. 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.
Finally, I laid in the leaves on the trees, using azo green and pale hansa, saving the sunlit leaves for last.
She was pretty happy with the painting! And I will maybe
be a little less nervous about future commissions.
