Hello fellow artist,

Here I have put together a simple picture and tried to explain as clearly as I can how I did it.
Why not have a go yourselves and see how you get on.
If you have been on one of my courses  (Roger Orton painting courses)
then once you have finished it you are invited to send me a digital picture of it to
  time4art1@ntlworld.com
and I will appraise it for you. Let me know  how much you enjoyed doing it and if you found any parts of it hard to do.
If you are pleased with your finished picture you can request it to be put into one of the gallery pages
on this website for all your family and friends (and the rest of the world)  to see.
Once you have done your first picture try doing it again but this time use a whole set of different colours of your own choosing to see how different you can make it look.  Again, I would be interested to see your results if you wished to send them in.

Hovering your curser over the picture below will pause the slide show.

Painting a scene in the park.

1.      With any picture that I am about to start I plan out in my mind where things / objects are going to be and how I am going
          to achieve the finished look that I want.
         I try and draw lightly with a 2H pencil only the essential lines to indicate position and size of what will be in the finished painting the parts with
         hard line edges.
        With this picture I draw the mid ground tree trunks, the grass edges and just a few lines to indicate the height and lean / angles of some of the
         larger plants / flowers. 
        If you are making up your picture with no image in front of you (be it photo or real life), I find that it helps to draw where you want all your flowers
        to be and there size of blooms on a separate rough piece of paper.  A great painted picture can be ruined by a bad composition. 

2.      I then plan out the parts of the picture where I want to temporarily keep white when painting the background and foreground washes.
         In this picture I used masking fluid on the middle ground trees, the flower and pampas grass heads and a few of the stems leading from them.
         A good tip to remember……Mixing your masking fluid with a little clean water (no more than 50/50 mix) will help you to paint it on in thinner
         lines if required using a cheap brush. 

3.      Now I get to the painting bit………..Time to decide on the mood of my picture.
         The same picture can be painted many times using different colours in each picture resulting in a completely different look.
         Summer, winter, autumn, suuny or dull or rainy day, dusk or dark night.
         I strongly recommend that you have a go at doing this as it helps you discover what colour combinations you personally prefer, even if the
         only change you make is to alter the colours of the flowers in a border and the colour of the tree trunks. 

        I always start painting from the furthest away parts of the picture when doing the main washes so this usually means working from the top of the page down.
        As the top half of my picture is going to be the distance / background, I do not want a lot of detail painted. In life I can only focus on one area at a time 
        so I think of my picture in the same way.  If I want out of focus / blurred edged trees etc then I know that I must use the ‘wet on wet’ method of painting.

       Before using the No. 30 round brush to wet the paper, I mix all the different colours that I want to use in that area, so they are ready and 
       can be applied quickly.
       (When I talk about ‘dropping a colour in’ I put the colour onto the pointed end of a brush a just touch it onto the wet paper here and there, only using a  
        slight sideways movement if I want it to cover a larger area. Let the wet surface of the paper do most of the work for you, The colour will spread out
        on its own if you work quickly and the paper is still wet.)
        Once the paper is wet you have to work quickly…………You could use the No 30 or the No.10 round brush to do this.

        I first dropped in a weak mix of Cobalt Blue here and there to indicate sky areas ( mainly in the middle of the wet area  either side of the middle ground   
        trees. Then I dropped in a very small amount of Lemon Yellow to indicate areas of tree leaves that are catching the sunlight. I followed this with two 
        variations of mixed Cadmium Yellow and French Ultramarine resulting in two shades of darker greens.
        Last of all I dropped in a watered down mix of 50/50 Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna at both the ends where the high flower and Pampas grass heads will  
        be. These slightly darker areas will make the foreground flowers stand out more in the finished picture.
        Be careful that you do not overfill with the greens and brown resulting in the loss of  all of your sky areas.

       When the background is finished and you should have an out of focus area that could resemble smaller trees or hedges lower down and towards the top  
       of the picture the closer trees leaving some blue of the sky showing through the middle area.
       Remember to wipe any surplus water from the edges of the paper and masking tape so that it doesn’t work its way pack onto the picture causing 
       unwanted white cauliflower marks.       Dry the picture before continuing. 

4.     Now might be a good time to have a cup of tea.
        This is not a waste of time as it gets you away from the painting for a short period and when you return from making your cuppa you will look at your  
        painted part with ‘fresh eyes’.
        Whilst you are drinking your well earned cuppa, try and make some sense of the areas of colours in front of you and how they could be there in the 
         positions that they are in.
        Then using a very, very weak watered down mix of Burnt Umber and Paynes Gray, paint in thin trunks of trees or shrubs using the Round 00 brush.
        These  trees are so far back in the picture that they should only be about 2 cm tall max.  I find it useful to dab them with a paper towel as soon as
        I have painted them to make them look even more distant.      (The darker the tonal value, the nearer it will look) 

5.     Now painting with the rigger / script liner brush and the same colour mix, I then painted  other trees slightly closer in the picture with some of them starting 
        from the bottom of the painted area. These trees will require branches and when finished need to be of a stronger tonal value than those painted before. I  
        get this effect by just not dabbing with a paper towel after painting them. You do not have to worry about how they fit in with the background of blurred 
        leaves as you will be painting new leaves for these trees next.  (See slide 3 above)

6.     Because the last sets of painted trees are closer to you than the others, there leaves would be more defined than the out of focus background greens.
        These can be lightly dabbed onto the painting using a very fine textured natural sponge. I used a couple of mixes of French Ultramarine and Cadmium  
        Yellow (one light green and one slightly darker) for the leaves. (See slide 4 )

5.    The middle ground (grass area) wash was done next using the wet on wet method.
       After mixing my colours and wetting the paper using the No.30 round brush, I filled all the grass area from the already painted background up to the path 
       with neat Lemon Yellow and then blended in a green mix (made of Lemon Yellow and French Ultramarine) on the right and left hand side where the high 
       flowers and grasses will be using the No.10 round brush. I then ran the brush along by the path edge in one continuous stroke to give a thin(ish) blended   
       green edge to the grass.  (See slide 5)
      (If you keep lifting the brush off and onto the paper it will leave behind lots of uneven and possibly uncontrollable amounts of paint so try not to do it here.) 

6.     I next painted the ground area on the two flower borders.
        This was done using the wet on wet method and doing one border at a time.
        I first filled the area with a darkish green made from a mix of French Ultramarine and Cadmium Yellow. Then before it has a chance to dry use
        the No.6 round brush to drop small amounts of  Burnt Umber here and there to represent soil showing through the foliage. It would be a good idea
        to run the brown along the bottom edge of the borders as the soil would almost certainly be seen there.
        You should end up with a mottled soft mix of the two colours.
         Let it dry before continuing. (See slide 6 )

7.       Now the remaining grass area has to be painted using the wet on wet method.
          I started by painting Lemon Yellow on the part that is furthest away to about half way down. Then I used a mix of French Ultramarine and
          Cadmium Yellow to create a middle green………..(slightly darker / bluer than pea green) on the remaining area.
          Once done, I quickly cleaned my brush and dried it on a paper towel, then used it to create a gradual blend between the green and the yellow.
          To create depth in your picture it is important that the nearer the grass is to you, the slightly darker in tonal value it is.
          Let it dry before continuing. (See slide 7 )

8.       You can now use the same green mix and the No.6 Round brush for shadows coming from the middle ground trees.  I have also put some shadows
           on the right hand side coming from trees that are not shown on the picture. Just because the picture stops at the edge of the paper doesn’t mean that
           the world does.!!!!!
           Points to remember when doing shadows…….. Make sure they are all in the correct direction in relation to the light source.
           The darker the shadows, the brighter the day will appear. (See slide 7 )

9.        The path is then painted using the wet on wet method.
           I used a Burnt Umber mixed with a small amount of Paynes Gray.
           Once the paper is wet I start from the part of the path that is closest to me and then zig zag in horizontal strokes, working my way back into the picture.  
           The colour on your brush should get weaker as you go through this process providing that you do not refill it with more colour.   If you get half way
           down the path and it isn’t getting any weaker then wipe some of the paint off your brush using a paper towel before continuing.
           Let it dry before continuing. (See slide 8 )

10.      I then used a stronger mix of the same two colours to create a little textured detail on the path.
           This was done using the dry on dry method.
          ( Filling the No. 10 round brush with the colour and then resting it onto a piece of paper towel to soak away most of the wetness, but not wipe
          away the colour.
           Then holding the brush in such a was so that the side of the brush comes into contact with the paper and the shank of the brush is pointed towards you,  
           move the brush sideways.  The idea is that the paint only goes onto the high parts of the textured paper……giving you a textured look.)
            I start from the edges of the path and brush towards the centre area.
           This only needs to be done on the path that is closest to you as the further away it is the more out of focus it would become.
           You could also paint in some small pebbles / stones if you wished.
            Using a watered down  version of the same colour you will need to paint in the shadows coming from the Pampas grasses and flowers from
            the right hand side. Paint them in using one stroke only on an area or there will be a danger of lifting out the path colour and making a mess. 
            (See slide 9 )

10.       You can use the same strong colour mix as you used for stones/ pebbles to create detail in your flower borders.
            As you can see where your flower heads will be (at the moment protected by the masking fluid) you can then use the No.00 round brush or
            the rigger brush to paint more defined lines in the bed to indicate stems to some of them. Little squiggle marks lower down could represent
            darker leaf shapes. 

11.       I then painted the rough grass under the middle ground trees.
            I used the No. 00 Round brush and  Lemon Yellow to start with to give the light areas. Then the same green used earlier on the foreground grass  
            followed by some Burnt Umber in the shady bits.
            I also used the green mix to paint some tufts of grass in the upfront grass area.
            The trick here is to just do the right amount of tufts.   You just want enough to tell people that it is grass without painting in every blade.
            Make sure everything is dry and then rub off the masking fluid from all parts of the picture. (See slide 10)

12.      Next I painted the bark on the middle ground trees to represent a Silver Birch look. To do this I used the No.10 round brush and Paynes Gray.
           Dry on dry method.
           First I put a strong mix of Paynes Gray onto the side of the brush and then dab it once onto some paper towel.
           I then lay the whole of that brush side on the dark side of one of the trees base. Then drag it over to the light side.  If you have the correct amount
           of paint / water mix on your brush it will leave some part filled in and some part feather edged.
            If it all gets filled in then dab your brush on some paper towel again and try it a little further up the tree trunk.

           I work my way up the tree trunk doing this, each time leaving a small gap.  then without refilling my brush I work my way down the other side
           in between the gaps.
           Be careful that you don’t overfill your trunk. Leave some areas of white.
           Once this work is dry I use a weak mix of Paynes Gray and run the point of my brush up the dark side to create the shadowed area of the trunk. 
           ( See slide 11 )

13.      I painted the pampas grass next in an undercoat of really watered down Burnt Umber . Once dry I then over painted with stronger mixes of the same  
           using the No.00 Round brush to make the heads look feathery.

          The white daisies middles were painted in Cadmium Yellow and just touched a little brown on the dark side.  Some of the daisies petals were given
           a light watery mix of Paynes Gray if I thought they would be in shadow. 

           All the other flowers were painted by first giving them a weak coat of paint, then letting it dry before over painting parts with a stronger mix
           of the same colour.
           On the lower flowers I chose Prussian Blue.
           On the yellow flowers I used Cadmium Yellow and then over painted with a Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium red mix.
           The other flowers were painted in variations of French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson. 
           (See slide 12 or the picture below)

14.       All you have to do now is to sign it.
            I hope that you have enjoyed doing this picture.
            Let me know how you got on with it.
            Roger Orton.