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	by Dennis Clark What colours are used in this painting ? Cobalt Blue Cadmium Orange Cadmium Yellow Burnt Umber Yellow Ochre Titanium White Medium Used : Oil on Canvas General In this lesson I have taken a small advert out of a magazine for reference and inspiration. Normally if I had copied it exactly or almost exactly then I would have come in conflict with the Copyright Act which says that the Magazine and or the Photographer owns the copyright of the picture. In order to use that picture it has to be substantially changed or modified. A look at the advert (Above) and the finished painting will tell you that they are not the same yet there is a vague similarity. The actual painting is on a 9" X 12" (229mm X 305mm) canvas board but you may use any size board you feel comfortable with. Pencil Work The picture above shows the minimum pencil work necessary. Let's get going! Sky Mix a bit of Cobalt Blue into some Titanium White for a soft sky effect with the sky getting lighter towards the horizon. Clouds Mix a small touch of Cad Orange into Titanium White (left) and then make sure that it is not too orange (right). Remember also that the pink lightens when mixed into the blue sky. Orange is the complimentary colour of blue. Using the #4 bristle brush add in the clouds in a slightly rounding action in order to achieve the billow effect. Blend the cloud colour into the blue of the sky at the left hand side to achieve a shadow effect. Using the edge of the brush add some extra cloud body colour to the right hand edges of the cloud which receives the full blast of the sun's rays. Blend the bottoms of the clouds into the sky colour in order to produce a hazy effect (typical African summer clouds). Unless you are experienced in painting realistic clouds of all types don't try to paint dark-bottomed clouds. Be careful to not paint "cotton wool" clouds. Clouds should NEVER be painted using straight white! Clouds always reflect the colours surrounding it even if only slightly. Pure white is a sterile colour and should be used sparingly. Add a light touch of white on the cloud edge for the final highlight. Trees and Shrubs Mix Yellow Ochre with a touch of Cobalt Blue to produce a medium green colour. Use a 12mm (1/2") pure bristle hardware (household) brush (mine has it's handle sawn off for convenience and ease of adding grass effects) to dab the trees onto the canvas. The paint has to be reasonably thinned down with medium (not mineral turps!). The paint must almost flow off the individual bristles. The paint must NOT be so thick in consistency that the bristles stay pasted together. Allow for "sky-holes" - birds must be able to fly in and out of the trees and shrubs. Now highlight the right hand side of the trees with Yellow Ochre that has been lightened a bit with White (not too light) and just a small touch of the green added. Still using the 12mm (1/2") hardware brush gently add the highlights by just touching the painting to the canvas and lifting the brush straight up again. Don't pull the brush across the painting. Add some Burnt Umber to darken the green paint on your palette and in the same dabbing fashion carefully add the shadow areas - darkest at the bottom. With an opened up a paperclip carefully scratch in some branches - don't overdo it! Distant Grass Add some Yellow Ochre to Burnt Umber plus some White to make a lightish brown ground colour. After painting in the top left hand portion add a few dark Burnt Umber stripes to indicate the lay of the land and its undulations. Darken the left hand side to force the viewer's eye towards the centre of the painting. Lighten some Yellow Ochre with White and add some medium to make it reasonably sloppy. With this mixture add in the grass against the tree line by carefully pressing the #7 brush flat against the canvas. Press and pick straight up again. The idea is to leave an impression of the brush's bristles in order to look like grass. Here is a closeup of the grass under the trees. There is no grass on the area closer to the water's edge. In this area spatter (splatter) some of the very light to darker colours on your palette (4 colours) to give a gravel/stoney effect. Water The water, being much lower down than the trees, will effectively only reflect the ground colour and not the sky or the trees. We will, using artist's licence, however add some blue and green later on. Using downward strokes only paint in the calm waterhole. Allow downwards streaks to show. With a clean dry and hard bristle brush pull a few horizontal streaks across the vertical lines to indicate wind movement. With the edge of the painting knife add a few horizontal white water movements at the shore line. Foreground (Underpainting) Use Burnt Umber straight from the tube and brush in the foreground - darker at the bottom and getting lighter towards the top. Use some of the Yellow Ochre and White to touch up the lighter streaks. Foreground (Underpainting) 1. Mix Orange in White 2. Mix small amount of Burnt Umber into this mix. 3. Mix more Burnt Umber into another portion for the darker highlights. Using the painting knife pick up some paint on the underside and then laying the knife flat on the canvas lightly pull the knife across causing the paint to be pulled off unevenly onto the canvas. Using all three colours build up the foreground. To finalize the basic foreground cautiously apply a few sunlight patches by adding Cad Yellow to some White. Don't overdo!! Rocks Apply some rock underpainting in Burnt Umber in places using the painting knife. The rock highlights were added by using the orange/pink and a rigger brush. The Focal Point So far we have a nice country scene but lacking a focal point, something to pull the painting together with a special point of interest. I've decided to add an aloe roughly on the 1/3 line with a smaller one for balance. Mix a blend of Burnt Umber and a touch of Cobalt Blue to give a very dark brown. Use a #2 rigger brush to draw in the 2 aloes in silhouette form. The leaves are added in by laying the brush flat and pulling each leaf out from the centre and eventually lifting the tip up to form the pointed ends. The flowers are initially added in with pure Cad Orange, a shadow added on the left hand side and a highlight (light yellow) on the sunshine side. The leaves are highlighted with the same green as the trees. Add some more yellow and white for a final touch up of the leaves. 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.