Summer Blue

The season of yellow has passed. The wildflowers of spring and the many shades of yellow are replaced by the many shades of blue. Lilac and wisteria in the garden and bluebells in the woods.

The sky was painted with a thin layer of paint to allow the later layers of the foliage to sit on top without too much interference from the white in the sky mix. When painting ‘wet on wet’, this is always a problem. The white will destroy the rich shadows. The darker colours were placed on top in blobs of solvent rich paint. Any attempt to ‘paint’ in the traditional manner will cause mixing.

When it came to painting the trunks of the trees this mixing with the under colour produced the lighter shades. Just drawing the brush across the surface was enough to lift the lighter sky colour. For the darker fine tree branches I dragged some of the aforementioned blobs of paint in lines to suggest the branches. This is easier than loading the brush with paint and sketching the multitude of fine lines required.

The colours used were Winsor Lemon, Permanent Rose and Cobalt Blue, plus black and white.

Here’s the video of the painting process.