I must confess that I love painting with dark colours. There’s something about the subtle nuances of deep blues and purples that really grabs me – though it’s not without its dangers. Overlay too many dark tones with acrylics, and suddenly everything begins to look black, which really is not what you want.
Anyway, this painting began with a reference photo – a beautiful and haunting infrared shot taken at Canberra’s National Arboretum by Greg Primmer (thanks Greg!)
Being greyscale, it gave no hints at all on how to interpret it in a painting. I was free to do whatever I wanted with it, but then again we’re always free to interpret a scene in our own way. Usually though, a scene gives us some guidance in choices of colour and so on, but not this time.
I eventually opted for a night scene, firstly because the long deep shadows in the photo give the feeling of approaching sunset, and secondly because the many detailed shapes – all those convoluted hedges for example – could logically be made abstract if the painting was set at night.
Diving right in, with lots of dark blues in the sky blended down to a light horizon. Some finger-painted clouds on the right, a draft placement of some trees, and light blue where the grass is going to be – I’ll use masking fluid to protect these areas while I overpaint them with darker colours. The idea in my head is for a moonlit scene, hence all the white & light blue highlights on the trees and grass.
Big steps forward. In the sky, I’ve painted out the clouds on the right as it felt like they distracted from the composition, drawing the eye out of the painting. Lots of palette knife darks in the sky now to create some randomness and texture. The beginnings of a milky way, with stars.
The foremost tree, which I expect to be the main focal point, has a lot more detail now. Too much perhaps, with more to come. The masking fluid has been removed, revealing the crisp outlines of the grass, which I’ve added some patches of darker blue to with a broad brush glaze. Hills in the background, which I want to lighten as they’re a little too stark for my liking.
It almost feels done! Lots of work in the sky, incorporating greens, golds and copper tones. I want it to feel like it’s both dark, and glowing, and have an air of mystery and magic.
Even more colours (too much?) on the grass and the hedges, which unfortunately have lost some of their swirling shape. A larger dark tree on the right has been added, basically to frame the painting and stop the eye from following the path to the right & off the side.
A thoughtful figure of a woman looking skywards has been added, not as the main focus but as a secondary point of interest. She’s the key to the emotion I want the painting to convey – of solitude, reflection, and wonder.
I’ve gone ahead and signed it, but I’m not happy. The white on that tree is a bit much, and so is the level of detail which obscures any sense of its brushwork – I want simplicity, and I haven’t achieved it – I need to think. In fact, between now and the final version I spent just as much time as it took to get to this point. It’s too easy to say a painting’s done before it really is.
At last, I’m done. The hills were lightened a lot more, merging them in with the twilight – I really like the effect this created, as the tree trunk is now nicely contrasted. Successive glazes of pink and green have been applied – you can especially see the bold pink I’ve added to the focal tree, which was a risk but one I felt necessary.
Were I to paint this again, I’d probably approach those trees, especially the focal one, differently from the start. I’d think less about light and shade & the shape of leaves, which is a trap leading me down a path of realism, and more about what works in the picture overall.
Deep breath. Lessons learned. Next painting awaits.
