Rock Stairway Project

This painting project was taken from a photograph I took while I was on holiday in the U.S. This particular location is a trail in the California mountain area up to an old Chumash Indian waterfall area called NawHoeEE Falls. The spelling may be incorrect, but I believe this is how you pronounce the word. It is a trail along a creek up through the mountain with a few wooden bridges across the water and some rock stairways. There is poison oak along the way so those people who hike the trail need to be careful not to touch the vegetation. What got my attention as an artist,as I took the photograph, was the way the light filtered in through the wooded area and hit the rocks on the trail. It was stunningly beautiful and I thought this may be a good idea for a painting.

Here is the photograph I used as a reference for the painting...



I began the painting with a toned canvas. To tone my canvas I used a yellow ochre acrylic paint and painted the entire canvas with one coat of this paint and then let it dry completely. I then used a cadmium red light colour (thinned with medium) to roughly draw out the image with a bristle brush.I used a small flat brush for the rough drawing. Here is the painting with the rough drawing...



Next, I painted my dark colours using the dark paint that I pre-mix on my palette. This dark consist of Ultramarine blue + Alizarin Crimson + a dot of yellow. (See "My Palette" on the menu bar) I usually do not use black as it is very dull and has no colour in it. This is what it looked like up to this point...



Next, I paint the green areas at the top of the painting as this is a fairly dark colour, I put in my dark greens first, then paint the lighter ones on top where the hi-lights are. Here is what it looked like at this stage...



Next, I paint in some light colours. This helps me to figure out the middle values (tones) if I put in some light areas then I can judge some of the middle tones easier. I may end up toning these light areas down if they are too bright to start with. But that is one of the wonderful things about painting with oils - you can change anything! If it doesn't work, you can just paint over it.Here is the painting up to this stage...



Next, I began to paint some of the background around the trees and work on the sky areas. Trying to soften the edges of the light blue around and through the trees. The painting is making some good progress. I also put some more colour in and around some of the rocks around the stairway. Here is how it looked up to this point..



Next, I worked on some middle tones on the stones that make up the stairway. These middle tones are (to me) the most difficult part of the painting as you have to be able to mix these grayish colours as you see them on your reference photo. I mixed up a dark earth brown colour using raw sienna, burnt sienna and darkened it with my dark mixture (Ultramarine blue + Alizarin Crimson + dot of yellow) then I lighted part of it using my warm gray that I pre-mix. I also used Paynes gray and lightened it with Titanium white. I also worked on some of the rocks around the stairway. Here is how it looks up to this point...



Here is a little closer look....



Next, I worked on the trees, adding some branches up through the sky blue patches to make it look more natural. I also worked more on the stone steps with more gray colours.



This is the finished painting...

Here is my signature on the bottom left side..