Unit 1 Summative: Part 4 - Description of my Painting

I started my painting by doing a base wash of paint to block in the colours for the sky, trees, lake, and rocks. I was not pleased with how the wash on the rocks and lake turned out, so I painted a thicker layer of acrylic over them to give them texture, and then dry brushed the base colour on these areas. After this, I applied pea-sized dots of colour to create the trees. I didn’t like how the trees were coming in, so I started to apply layers of colour such as green, blue, and red until I got the base colours of different sections. Then I made blobs of colours in some spots to highlight different trees. Next, I added clouds to the sky in the form of a very light blue wash. Then I added different shades of blue to the lake and different shades of gray to the rocks to add definition to these surfaces. I made the trees on the top of the rocks next by applying a red layer, then building up shades of green, yellow and orange until I had three distinct trees. I added definition to the trees along the lakeshore and the rocks in the form of striations on the rocks and coloured dashes and specks on the trees. The final step was adding the dead tree on the rock by using a small brush to paint light, thin lines for the branches, and adding the reddish tree by the water by first painting the branches and then adding dots of colour to create the leaves.

One skill that I learned was how to create texture using just paints. I achieved this by thickly applying paint to an area and texturing it with the brush, then dry brushing colour on top of it. Another skill that I learned was how to make light, whispy clouds. I achieved this by applying a very faint blue wash to the sky and layering it using long and short strokes. I feel that I could continue to improve my technique with washes. I was frustrated that I could never achieve the right colour with the first attempt at a wash. Whenever I tried to put another colour on top to mask or correct my first attempt at a wash it would not have the effect I had hoped for. I found this very frustrating.