I’ve started a large painting of Grand Teton from a photo I took on a trip there a couple of years ago. The painting is 36”x48” acrylic on birch panel. This post is an update on my progress!
This is the original photo. I love it and how I feel it captures what I saw at the park : pristine beauty, jagged mountains, clean water, pines everywhere scenting the air… Can’t you smell them looking at this photo?
To start the photo has to be gridded out- one square is one foot. I don’t bother with this for small pieces but when I am doing work large enough I can’t see it all at once I have to to keep it in perspective. * Just a note- I believe over-gridding leads to art that looks like a paint by number. Paint by numbers are cool but not what I am going for.
I painted the sky and then the line of the mountains. I decided to make it more of an early- sun is starting to set- sort of colorscape. I hadn’t planned on changing this but just did it.. I think the color speaks to how magnificent the place is, and that is really what the painting is about.
Next I painted the texture details of the mountains visible from behind the trees and started painting the outline of the major shapes in the foreground.
I blocked in the rest of the mountains and started blocking in values of the rocky ground in front.
Water has been blocked in and so has all the ground. Trees in very back have been started and my tree trunks have been placed. The grid is completely covered and now with the major shapes placed the trees, etc are placed using the landforms as reference.
Check back next Monday for more progress!