Frosty Morning

Early morning, before sunrise. A dull, eerie light filters into the woods. It is the colour of winter foliage and even the frost has a murky colour cast. The winter logging activity has left deep ruts in the roads, now flooded and frozen.

The scene was unusual and the treatment was very different from the standard oil painting method. Firstly, there are only 2 colours used, Olive Green and Indian Red. The lightest colours were applied first. A mix of the two colours was prepared and applied with solvent only to rough in the main elements. Pure white was then painted on top and brushed to start some of the background shapes. The distant trees were painted with a very solvent rich green/red without white. The solvent produced a mixing with the white under layers – giving an ‘atmospheric’ perspective. The closer the trees the less mixing, the deeper the colour. I used a fine brush to sketch in the details of trees and ground details.

The white, a lot was used, was an Alkyd fast drying paint. The other two paints were standard oils. Although this is a single layer painting and therefore should not cause problems with fast slow drying paints, the fast drying Alkyd paint was applied first with the standard oils placed on top.

The opposite of this, placing a fast drying paint over a slow drying layer could cause a problem as the fast drying layer could seal off the slow drying under layer which might never dry.

The painting is small, 12″ x 10″, and took about an hour and a half to complete. Here is the video of the painting process, see you soon.