Mountain Reflections Pt 3. Painting #17. Practice Makes you Better.

July 24, 2018

Mountain Reflections part 3
Date Painted: March 4, 2017
Size: 16 x 20 canvas

Mountain Reflections part 3 is my 17th painting. This one was requested yet again. Someone I worked with saw the first version of this one and liked it a lot. I was happy to paint it again and I did it a third time. In case you missed the second one, you can see it here. The difference here is that I used the extra yellows that I didn’t have before. I also slightly improved in the foliage areas.

“Let’s put a few little highlights in here to make them little rascals just sparkle in the sun…” – Bob Ross

Let’s Get Started

This post is going to be a little bit different than my previous. It is still about Mountain Reflections part 2, my second time painting this scene. I will still post the video reference and colors/materials. Following that, I will do a sort of comparison to my first attempt and see what I had improved on at the time. So join me on this trip down memory lane as I recap my seventeenth oil painting.

The Inspiration

The inspiration for this piece was Joy of Painting episode S12E2. Same as the first time. Although, I can’t remember if I used the video for this one. I must have at least referred to it since I had the new colors to use so I wanted to see where Bob used them within the painting.

Materials Required

Here are the colors and equipment I used. Everything needed to do this painting comes with the Bob Ross Master Paint Set, with the exception of a few extra colors.

Whether you want to continue on your journey after painting your first masterpiece from the Bob Ross Master Kit DVD or painting for the first time, here are the colors and equipment you will need. The kit includes everything you need to paint this painting in particular as well as many other spectacular Bob Ross masterpieces. Getting this kit will eliminate the anxiety of buying the right brushes made of the right materials or the right oil paints with correct firmness or pigment ratios. Everything you need is there and ready to go.

Colors

Mediums

Liquid Hwite!

Equipment

For more items and materials you may need, check out my Getting Started page.

Let’s See What’s Different

Sky

Note: The italicized text is from post about my first version.

There’s not much I can say about the sky. I recall having fun painting the clouds. The only suggestion I would have, when the sky is a single color, is to vary the amount of pressure you apply with the two inch brush. Keep the brush moving all around the canvas using the little criss cross strokes Bob talks about. This will add a bit of variation and interest to your sky overall and give it more depth.

I think I did the same thing in this version. Now, it could be the lighting but the blue in this sky appears to have a slightly different value of blue. That could be the amount of pressure applied or how much liquid white was applied.

Clouds

Clouds are free and fluffy so have fun with them! Using the fan brush in this case, the trick is to keep the brush moving.

So my clouds in part 2 aren’t all that different. If anything they’re not blended out as well on the bottom.

As you can see, the clouds are different in each painting.

Mountain

The mountains in this painting turned out well, overall. The paint was “breaking”, meaning you can see little gaps of the color underneath. The only minor critique I have of these mountains is similar to my previous paintings. The sharp angles of the highlights and shadows. Mainly the shadows.

Part 2. The paint breaking remains in this version but I think the overall shape of the highlights improved.

Part 3. My highlight in this one resembles frosting a bit. This could be due to lighting but by this time in my painting journey, I know I had to reorder some Titanium White. The paint I got from that particular supplier was not as firm as the paint that came with the Bob Ross kit.

The last couple of mountain paintings I did, there appears to be a dark line above the start of the highlight. This is due to not starting the highlight stroke above the mountain outline. That’s a key trick in order to avoid that type of happy accident. Begin your highlight stroke just on the outside edge of the mountain highlight.

Part 2. This got better here. You can see a bit of a dark line on the far right peak.

Part 3. About the same with this one.

…because of the smaller mountain in front of the larger one. I failed at that. The reason is because I didn’t create enough mist on the large background mountain. Additionally, I didn’t bring it far enough down the canvas to make it appear closer. So remember those two little tricks for painting a separate small mountain in front of a large main mountain. Create a dark, misty base, then start painting in the smaller mountain close to the base.

Part 2. At the time of this painting, I hadn’t realized my errors in creating that depth to show a closer, smaller peak and therefore didn’t improve on that at all.

Part 3. STILL didn’t improve here! See my tips from part 1 to avoid this. Of course, I didn’t learn that until much later.

Trees/Bushes

In the last post I mentioned that the foliage could have used a little more color variation but I didn’t have the extra colors needed. In this version I did have those extra colors and they really added a lot. I think the shape and forms were about the same.

Part 2

Part 3

Middle Bushes

Final Thoughts

This is not my favorite version. I think Part 2 is my favorite. What I do love about part 3 are the bushes. I loved what the extra colors added to the overall composition. Overall, version two appears to be a little bit more vibrant and the bushes seem a bit sharper. I did cover up that bottom right corner this time around. The mountains are not my greatest but as I mentioned, I think it was the paint. I would run into this issue in future paintings. The bushes and highlights are top notch!

Mountain Reflections — Part 1 (4th painting)

Mountain Reflections pt 2 — Part 1 (4th painting)

This post has been more of a comparison to my first version. If you would like more how tos and lessons learned, visit my first post about Mountain Reflections. In that post I mentioned the colors I used versus the colors Bob uses in the video. You can clearly see the difference those few extra colors make.

Note: Again, I don’t have any quality photos of this one. I took them on my old iPad in a poorly lit garage where I painted at the time. This painting was the biggest canvas I had worked on and the third painting sold.

I hope you enjoy this painting. I’d love to know your thoughts. Tell me what you like about each painting. What could be better? Have a question? Comment below. Subscribe to my blog to stay up to date and be notified when a new post is live and learn more about the Bob Ross method and how far it can take you as a new artist. You can also follow me on all my social media sites. Looking to buy some artwork? Visit my art store or my Etsy shop.

Happy Painting!