SIERRA BUTTES, MOUNTAIN PAINTING LESSONLandscape Oil Painting Demonstration | |||||||||||||||||
Art lesson navigation menu Part 1 of 3 
2. After consulting with the clients to get an understanding of what they liked, I painted the study shown above as well as another one of Long Lake (see the January 13th post on my blog) as a couple of proposals for the project. They immediately gravitated toward this one and we agreed upon it. I looked forward with great anticipation as I thought this would make a great painting...following is the chronicling of it.  3. The painting will be 40" x 60", the same size as "Mt. Washington" shown hanging in my studio behind me. 4. With the canvas stretched as tight as a drum (or at least as tight as I could stretch a drum), I'm now ready to begin...   5. It's 4:45 am and I begin to paint by mixing up a nice burnt orange color and apply it to my canvas with a large brush...this is just to tone my canvas so ultimately I'll even it all out to the edges with a towel wetted with a little thinner...  6. Once my canvas is toned, I use the same burnt orange color to draw in some of my major elements...shown next to it is my original study which will aid me as I progress in the painting.  7. Here you can see the extent of the detail I give myself...not too much at this stage...  8. My sky is broken up with clouds, so using a light blue color I define the area of clouds and sky...  9. Once I've defined the areas roughly where I want the sky and clouds to be, I can begin painting that area...  10. I start with the lighter area of the sky (generally the area nearer the horizon) and work toward the darker...  11. I pretty much complete the sky before beginning the clouds...  12. I usually paint dark to light, but both sky and clouds are typically exceptions for me, especially clouds because of their nature...usually the dark part of the cloud is nearer the viewer as it represents the shadow area and is often times somewhat back or top lit by the Sun...  13. To finish the clouds, I paint the "dark" areas into the light, blending to various degrees depending on the shape and texture of the clouds...  14. Here's a view of the right side of the painting with the sky mostly done.  15. Once I'm satisfied with the sky, I move on to the main focal point of the painting, the buttes. I start by thinly laying-in the dark area of the mountains. In this photo, the darks look quite dark, but in actuality, the dark areas aren't super dark. I want these mountains to recede a bit and as such I must be careful not to go too dark in the shadows in this part of the painting.  16. I come back into these shadow areas and work in a little texture with an even lighter "dark" color before moving on to the light side of the rugged buttes. I alternate between knife and brush in the mountains to give them just the amount of texture I want. Click to View PART TWO of the Sierra Splendor painting TutorialTutorial is copyright of Mike Callahan
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I have many reference photos from hikes I've done in the area, so using the two photos shown above of the majestic Sierra Buttes from a ridge overlooking the Sardine lakes, I set out to paint a study...
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