AUTUMN TREE

This is the photo I took of an autumn tree that I loved because of the colors and the blue sky behind the leaves.

 I started painting some of the leaves on the right.  I used cadmium yellow on all of them but on some dropped in winsor red and a Daniel Smith color called quinacridone sienna (if you don't have this color, you can make it by mixing quinacridone gold + burnt sienna + quinacridone rose).  I used winsor red and quinacridone rose on most of the brighter red leaves and quin. sienna on the orangier leaves.

I did the background starting in the upper left corner.  I painted wet into wet for the blue sky only (not the leaves) in ultramarine blue.  I then painted the leaves while the blue was still wet with cadmium yellow.  I painted quickly and only painted halfway down the paper with the blue and then went up with the yellow so the paper didn't dry and the yellow would blend in with the blue.  Some areas up top turned green which I wanted it to do.  Brought the ultramarine down and then added a violet mix of winsor red + ultramarine.  I kept working down quickly and got to the next group of leaves again with some blue and violet.  Once I got to the lower left, I added a bit of cadmium orange hue from Daniel Smith, under the violet, keeping it light.  Then I used burnt sienna under that and dropped in other colors to it such as quin. sienna, cobalt, violet, and quin gold.  All wet into wet.  I tried to make it look like distant and blurred branches and leaves.  As you go from the lower left corner to the right, it starts to transition into sap green + ultramarine.  I put clear water down along the bottom of the picture and dropped in a very light wash of a violet with alizarin crimson + cobalt blue.  It is very very light.  While that was still wet, I finished under the big branch by adding blues and greens and adding a few leaves.

I did a few more leaves and then started painting the big trunk and branch with cobalt blue also noting that there is a highlight where the big branch comes out of the trunk that I just used water to paint with instead of the blue.  I then dropped in a little quin. rose around that light.

When the cobalt blue dried, I painted a mix of burnt sienna + winsor red + ultramarine over the top of it, being careful to keep the light area.  

I kept painting out to the branches on the left, keeping them a little light because I didn't want to call too much attention to them.


I filled in with ultramarine and sap green above the branch.  I also added some circle shapes below the branch with a small round scrub brush.

Pretty much I just filled in the rest of the picture.  I did blend the leaves more above so they were so individual, using all the same colors as before.

Here is my finished painting.  I spattered some dots on the leaves with burnt sienna and also glazed some of the leaves with burnst sienna also just to make them a little darker in tone so some of the brighter leaves would stand out.