Autumn Reflection. Painting #85

Now THIS is an Autumn scene. I haven’t seen this much foliage color since I lived in New England. As I mentioned in my last post, living in the south, I don’t see much if any fall foliage. However, Bob taught me that I can create my own world. Bill Alexander taught me that I am the master and the creator next to God. And that is what I do on the canvas since I can’t be in the scenery I wish to be.

This one comes from the teacher’s teacher, Bill Alexander. This is only the second painting of Bill’s that I’ve done. You can follow along with Bill in Autumn Lake. In my last fall painting, I used a lot of the extra yellow colors like Indian yellow and yellow ochre. This one does not require those colors but of course, it’s your world so use whatever colors you like.

Colors

• Alizarin Crimson
• Bright Red
• Cadmium Yellow
• Midnight Black
• Prussian Blue
• Sap Green
• Titanium Hwite
• Van Dyke Brown
• Don’t forget the Liquid Hwite!

Equipment

• 2 Inch Brush
• 1 Inch Brush
• #6 Fan Brush
• Large Palette Knife
• Script Liner Brush

I absolutely love how the colors turned out in this one. Much more vibrant than my previous painting. The only difficulty I had was loading the brush with enough paint to make a good shape of a tree. Bill uses the big brush for them but I prefer the one inch brush to make trees. The big brush requires you to load more paint.

If you want your mountain to appear more distant, use a lighter base color. That is, use the normal crimson/blue/black or brown mixture but add some white to it. You’d be surprised how much that makes a difference. Another cool tip that I learned with this one was how Bill used a lot of the crimson in the base tree color, especially the ones with the bright colors. It makes sense if you think about it. When you put your highlight color on, it’s naturally going to pick up the under color and if it’s crimson, it’s just going to add a little bit of that. Whereas if you use just black and brown, it’s going to muddy up your highlight color.
Another thing I would do is put in the colored trees first, highlight them then add the normal green trees. This will help you reduce the browning of your highlight color.

Everyone loves Bob but his teacher Bill Alexander is lesser known. He’s a hoot to watch. Go check him out and try to do one of his paintings. I think you’ll be surprised.

This one sold but you can find many more paintings for sale in my Art Store. Don’t forget to follow me on my social media pages! Happy painting!