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	by Nolan Clark What colours are used in this painting ? Ultramarine Blue Cerulean Blue Brilliant Orange Cadmium Yellow Sap Green Burnt Umber Burnt Sienna White Medium Used : Oil on Canvas General Golden Gate is one of South Africa's most stunning landmarks. Part of the Maluti mountain range in the Free State province. The rocks in this range consist of sandstone and form huge pillars at places. The rocks 'change colour' dramatically during the day, especially at sunrise and sunset, when the mountain seems to glow a golden orange / red. Very beautiful indeed. The tutorial painting was painted on a 9" x 12" canvas so if you are going to use a different canvas, you will have to adjust the brush sizes to suit the canvas. What started out as a simple demonstration on painting clouds ended up as this painting. The clouds shown above were to be the inspiration for this painting. I climbed onto the roof of my house to take the photo. As a result the surroundings weren't 'attractive' enough for my liking. While going through photographs from previous holidays I came across one of Golden Gate. I decided to combine the two into the final painting. Sky After roughly drawing in the skyline I blocked the sky in with a mixture of Cerulean Blue and White as shown above. The sky lightens down to the horizon so I blended a mixture of French Ultramarine, White, Cerulean Blue and a touch of Brilliant Orange into the top lefthand corner, and completing the righthand section of the sky with the first sky mix adding more white. The mixes used for the sky are on the left. The white mix on the right is for the clouds and consists of White and Brilliant Orange. Clouds Using the White and Orange mix I blocked in the basic shapes of the clouds, taking care to avoid any repetition of shapes. Bigger clouds at the top and softer, smaller clouds near the horizon as they are far away. The clouds are laid down using a wispy action to create the impression of movement in the clouds. Using neat white I added the highlights onto the clouds on the lefthand side of the clouds near us (the top clouds). By adding a small amount of the original sky mix (Cerulean and White) to the original cloud mix (White and Orange) I got a light orange-grey. This is used for the shadows on the bottom right of each cloud. Working carefully now I used Burnt Umber to form the silhouette of the Gate, constantly referring to my photograph to ensure that I got the shape and perspective correct. To create a pillar effect the paint was laid down in a downward pulling motion. Cliffs The detail at the top of the pillar was put in using a no.6 flat bristle brush and some Burnt Umber into White. I painted with a short sharp dabbing motion to create the rough rocky effect. I then 'toned down' the shadow (righthand) side of the pillar by dabbing in some Brilliant Orange. Using the same method I completed the top of the cliffs to the left. To create the smooth rock face of the pillar and the cliffs I used varying combinations of Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Brilliant Orange and White, painting in a downward motion with the no.6 flat. Here I concentrated on getting the lights and darks in their correct places and the shape of the 'bite' out of the bottom of the pillar. The same process was repeated with the righthand cliffs. I however stayed with the darker combinations of Burnt Umber and White as these cliffs are in shadow. Foreground To start indicating the grassy ridge I worked in Sap Green while indicating some direction lines and rocks using the highlight mix from the mountain. The path leading up to the pillar was painted in using Sap Green at the base of the cliffs, blending in more of the mountain highlight colour toward the bottom of the canvas. This path is an important part of the painting as it leads the viewer into the painting towards the focal point (pillar). Here is what my palette looked like at this stage. Notice how most of the mixes are impromptu mixes, ie., I just mix and match the colours as I go using my unwashed brush as opposed to mixing distinct colours using my knife. The lefthand ridge was painted using Sap Green as the base colour with Cadmium Yellow and white for the highlights, and Burnt Umber mixed into the Sap Green (on the canvas) to create the shadows. To paint the rocky ridge to the right of the path I used the mountain colours laying them down with tiny dabs of my no.2 flat bristle brush. Final Touches Next I added the cliffs in the middle ground as well as the distant mountains. The distant mountain was lightened with white to all the mixes previously used to create the impression of distance. To complete the painting I painted in some of the rocks that were lying on the path leading up to the pillar using the shadow colour I used for the clouds. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please don't forget to email us a picture of your completed painting. We like to see how you are progressing. If you enjoyed this tutorial, please don't forget to sign our guestbook. To ensure that you are notified when new tutorials are added you can join our mailing list by clicking HERE.