Secrets of Painting Mountains

There really are no secrets to painting mountains. In actual fact they are fairly straight forward once you understand the basic concepts.

Painting mountains with the wet-on-wet oil painting technique requires:

.1 That you determine the location on the canvas for your mountain and if you like you can sketch in an outline of the peaks using a small brush (a ½ angle shader works well) and thin mountain mix. The mountain mix can be either your own mix or from the tube.

.2 Using the palette knife apply a thin even coat of mountain mix to your mountains; scrape just about all the paint away.

.3 Using the 2” brush and long strokes pull the thin mountain mix down to the bottom of the canvas following the direction and shape of your mountain.

.4 Now it’s just a matter of using the palette knife with a small roll of either the highlight mix or the shadow mix and applying that to your mountain.

Secret # 1 is to determine the direction of your light source (the sun) as this will tell you on which side of the mountain to put both the highlight and the shadow.

Secret # 2 sounds simple BUT…. Here you have to hold the palette knife loaded with a small roll of paint, very, very, very lightly so that the roll of paint just touches the canvas. You then glide this softly all the way down to the foot of your mountain – NO PRESSURE – A VERY LIGHT STROKE you want that paint to break leaving behind all kinds of ripples, holes, and ledges – the stuff that makes a mountain look rugged.

Now that you know the secrets “why not” find out all about this technique and join me on Saturday, April 16, 2011 and together we will paint MOUNTAIN DAY.

Time: 9:30 am to 3:30 pm

Canvas size: 16 x 20

Cost: $65

Registration and more info: www.studiothirtyeight.com

Ian Bartlett: info@studiothirtyeight.com

Phone: 613-623-4907