RD Murray Winter Sparkle 16x20RD Murray Winter Sparkle 16x20

Winter Sparkle by RD Murray

Winter Sparkle story board FINISHED SCRIPT/STORY BOARD

Basic acrylic painting. A landscape acrylic painting showing the steps from start to finish. A simple painting system to produce strong and colourful landscape paintings.

Hi there. I’m an artist painter and I work with acrylic paint. I like acrylics because they dry fast and have a vibrant colour.
Let’s get started on this fun and exciting painting I call winter sparkle

This is a picture of the finished Painting that we are going to work on. I took a photo of this stand of spruce trees on one of my many trips. I liked the contrast of the white snow and dark trees and of course the wonderful dappled light in the shadows

I’m using a stretched 16×20 gallery canvas. A gallery canvas has a stretcher frame that is an inch and a half thick. I have drawn a grid pattern on the canvas with willow charcoal. I start the grid by drawing a line with a straight edge form each corner of the canvas.
Where the lines cross in the centre I draw a vertical and horizontal line creating four rectangles and then proceed to draw diagonal lines subdividing each of the four rectangles I draw ventricle and horizontal lines in each of the rectangles. Eventually, you will have eight rectangles. Four up and four across.

Referencing the photo which also has the same grid drawn on it I draw in the major shapes with willow Charcoal. You can email me for a jpg copy of this photo with the white grid applied.

I start with a flat ½ ” synthetic brush which I like because I can make wide or thin marks with it. I begin painting in the dark shapes and lines with black gesso. You can also use mars black acrylic paint. Don’t get (precious) or too fussy. When you finish the black go have a coffee or tea and let this dry. Drying shouldn’t take any more than 15 or 20 minutes at the most.

Place the canvas on a flat surface. I use a spray bottle with water to wet the canvas and then brush the moisture out so that it is evenly distributed on the surface. Don’t let the water pool. Using an inch and a half wall painting brush I wash in the underpainting. The wash should be fairly dark but not opaque or solid. In this case, I’m using cadmium orange the complementary of blue which is going to be painted later. I wash the orange over the black and then come back and while it is still wet and with a paper towel wipe some of the colour off the black. Let this dry and again this will take about 15 or 20 minutes.

When the orange is dry I apply the white using the reference photo. I use acrylic titanium white. This is the most opaque white. It is really important to allow the orange to show through. I have indicated this with arrows on the image. By allowing the orange to show through you will provide that delightful sparkle this painting has. At this point, you now have the three major values established. The dark value, the middle value, and the light value. This is the backbone or the major structure of the painting completed. Pretty easy so far and it doesn’t get any harder.

Giving the white a bit of time to dry I begin to lay in the blues with a clean half inch brush. I start with a mixture of ultramarine blue and cerulean blue. I use the cerulean to lighten the darker blue just a bit. I immediately paint in the lighter blue which is a mixture of cerulean and titanium white which gives me the wonderful

At this point and this is optional I mix some white with acrylic mat medium gel to provide a thick texture to the snow. The mixture can be applied with a pallet knife or a brush.

With a smaller brush, I add touches of yellow ochre and the green which warms up the subject a little. Note the arrows.

The painting is almost finished. With a pointer or rigger brush which is a brush with long narrow bristles used for painting fine lines, I add flicks of black to create branches and leaves. Note the arrows.

I photograph my work before I apply acrylic varnish. Photographing a painting after you apply an acrylic gloss varnish is very difficult because of the reflections caused by the varnish. After the varnish is dry I paint the edges of the canvas black. This cleans up the dribbles of paint that run over the sides.

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