Yosemite Valley Silhouettes
I did this painting at a demo a few weeks back. It's from a photo of my own from Yosemite Valley in the winter- a mild winter, with a lot of parched grass on the ground and not much snow. Before hand, though, I did a run through on my own on a 1/4 sheet, to get acquainted with the image--
First wash-
Second wash-
Third wash-
Not perfect, but good enough for a first go, and I felt confident I could do the demo. Of primary interest to me was that I wanted to capture that glow around the top of the trees better, and would need to do it through some negative painting for the demo.
For the demo, I did a 1/2 sheet. It took about 1.5- 2 hours to get this first pass done, using many of the same methods as last time. As you can see, I decided to make the distant mountains paler and bluer, and the foreground lighter and bit less warm as well as well.
When I was done though, I felt like the mountains were just a bit too pale, too far away, given how close they really loomed. So, I went back in and did a wash on them to darken them up a bit. I went back in with a bit of white and yellow ochre and captured a bit more light on the left hand side of the stand of trees. I also decided to warm the foreground back up a bit, and did a light wash of brunt sienna on top of what I had, piecemeal, between the tree trunks.
All in all, not back. I might try it again, horizontal, and capture a bit more of the valley. We'll see.
As usual, I'll be adding this to gallery if you're interested in purchasing it. Thanks!