Steps to Creating a Painting

Painting with acrylics is rewarding and very awesome because white covers everything! If you don't like something, you can paint it over! This gives a freedom due to the fact that anything can be changed.

In painting Autumn's Magic Wand, I went through several steps. On a toned canvas, I laid out the design and blocked in some of the color. You can see the orange tone of the canvas. This will unify the painting. Also it's neat to see what the colors do against the background color. Play a little! Putting strokes of white shows how bright that will look, pink sings against the orange, deeper reds show Autumn and suggestions of green indicate conifers.

In this next step I decided to add a little blue, remember that blue and orange are complements and blue will always look good next to orange! So it's a very safe color to put in. I've added to the background and added reflections. White stroked onto the tree trunks begins to make them pop.

 Now to add even more color! More white and yellow white in the sky for the sunspot, a little light blue to sing against the yellows and orange, dark in the foreground, more detail in the trees and more reflection. See how adding more white in the reflection area begins to change the color balance and value balance of the painting.

Autumn's Magic Wand ©Melissa Gannon 2014
View on Daily Paintworks

Here is the completed painting. Even more detail has been added to the foliage in the form of brush strokes, the land in the background is lighter and the foreground foliage stokes add character and interest. Overall, the toned orange in the background still shows through to add to the chorus of color.

All text and photos ©Melissa Gannon 2014 All rights reserved.