
Receive a welcome and follow real-time guidance through the creative process, including the three value study, color mixing, sketching the composition, and first layers of paint in bold impressionist light.
Apply a tonal underpainting to add depth and unity to your painting, using a single burnt sienna coat in acrylic to create contrast and readiness for subsequent colors.
Begin the underpainting by coating the canvas with burnt sienna, thin with water to speed drying, letting earthy undertones guide the value study for the loose impressionist tree painting.
Master the three value study by mapping dark, middle, and light to define a painting's composition and balance; squint to identify values and block in.
Perform a three value study by identifying darkest areas in the canopy, branches, and trunk shadow, middle ground and lighter canopy, and the sky as the lightest value; sketch composition.
Master loose impressionist techniques by rebuilding darks in a sunlit tree with bold brushstrokes, blending light and shadow, and shaping edges to enhance the focal point.
Add more bushes and a darker house with shadows and a fence, then detail the ground and trees with blue tones, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre for a bloom effect.
Share your finished tree painting on social media or here to show how it turned out, and follow me to see what I'm up to. See you next time; cheers.
This is a paint along course where I also cover tips and tricks on how to create a loose and colorful painting in a modern impressionist style. I chose to paint a simple tree surrounded by just a few elements: the sky, a plain grass field and some elements in the background. This way we can focus on detailing and texturing the painting without working towards tying together too many objects, each with their own values, hue and color saturation.
Painting this tree gives us a lot of freedom to experiment with different textures by using brushes and a palette knife interchangeably.
Trees and other organic elements like bushes help you develop your own style by exploring how the appearance of branches and leaves is given using the palette knife or different size brushes. We are looking to give our art a painterly feel with clear, bold brushstrokes.
The whole course is in real time so you will be able to see step-by-step how the painting is created, not skipping a single streak of color.
Please make sure you:
have at least a palette knife and a 3 quarter inch brush for the process
have some solvent handy. You can buy turpentine or any other solvent from your local art supplier
download the attached reference photo so you have something to compare (print it if possible)
TIP: If you don't have acrylic burnt sienna for the underpainting, you can dilute your oil burnt sienna with a lot of solvent and it will dry a lot faster, even less than an hour if it is thin enough. For this painting it's best to get the coat as opaque as possible but it is a common practice to have the underpainting a lot thinner so don't worry if you can still quite see the canvas.
Hope you enjoy the course and don’t forget to post a photo of your work :). I am really excited to see what your finished painting will look like.
Also don’t forget to follow me for more courses in the future.
Cheers!