"Mosquito Lake" Oil on Canvas: Step-by-Step

Mosquito Lake in Northern California

Step One: covering the canvas-

Ultramarine Blue for a cool tree base and ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, and white for the sky and water

Step Two: adding greens- ultramarine and burnt umber with some yellow ochre and cad yellow added to chromium oxide green for the lighter areas- and using a cool grayish blue mix (ultramarine and cerulean with a little umber and white) for some background trees

Step Three:  adding rocks, lily pads, and shoreline details.  Chromium oxide green with cad yellow for lily pads and light green values on shore, lightened as needed with white.  I added  burnt umber and ultramarine blue to chromium oxide green to darken some of the areas at the base of trees and on shore.

Step Four: Trunks here and there- Cad red, burnt umber, ultramarine blue and some grayish trunks using a lighter, bluer version of the trunk mix.  Also a lot of work on reflected trees in the water- same colors as the originals but broken lines instead of solid trunks for a little movement, and thinner paint.  I also added more value changes to the water- darkest in front and lightening up near the shore. Also more lily pads.

Final Step:  I mostly worked on adding more details in the grass and lightened up some of the lily pads in the foreground and mid ground using ultramarine and cad yellow.  I also made the center trunk narrower and added some more darks around the tree trunks.  The main thing that finished it, was the water line at the shore (ultramarine and cerulean blue with white) to add definition between the actual and the reflected images.

Now, on to some new paintings!  I always seem to have a million painting ideas in my head- the hard part is to choose one at a time. 

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend - taking a few minutes to remember all of our heroes past and present!