Hills and Loch

Today’s little 5×7 inch landscape done with my palette knife.

I’m still learning from my mistakes, what to do and what not to do when painting in a loose impressionistic style with my acrylic paints, and I’m beginning to understand that a nice reference photograph does not necessarily translate well into a nice painting. Not without adding a big dollop of artistic license, anyway! Thankfully this one worked out fine.

I’ve discovered that – for me, anyway – if I’m painting a landscape I seem to need some proper up-close-and-personal interest in the immediate foreground to make it all come together, like some grasses or flowers or… well, to be honest I don’t know what else? So I need to choose carefully, or learn to add made-up stuff so that it looks like it’s supposed to be that way.

Another of my issues is worrying the paint over and over, trying to get it right. So today I made a point of laying the paint down once, lightly blending or adding a second colour or whatever needs doing to that immediate area, then leaving it alone. I realised once I’d finished that I’ve messed up the perspective along the top of the loch a bit, but I’m not going back over it now – I’ll maybe re-do the whole painting again on a new board instead?

I’ve also used up all my small 5×7 inch canvas boards for now, so will move up to using up my 10×12 inch boards next… a bit more daunting but I’ll definitely give it a try soon! 🙂

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