Landscape Painting

The landscape painting started with a few pictures we cut out of magazines or found on the Internet. We chose a painting for the sky, background, and foreground. We first practiced and arranged our composition by drawing a picture using sharpies. We used atmospheric perspective by making the things that were farther away in the painting, faded and less colorful than the things up close. In my painting specifically, atmospheric perspective was shown with the mountain's details not as clear as the trees and hills were up front. Light source was shown with the highlighting on the tree trunks. Also the mountains had many values showing it had a lot of depth and structure. The color scheme for my painting was analogous, using yellow, yellow orange, orange, and red orange. These colors allowed me to create a wide variety of shades and tints which i used for the sky and the trees, the ground being the darkest and the sky being the lightest. Also, black and white were used to mix with the colors i chose and also to use for any parts of the painting that were simply colored black and white. Brush strokes were an important part of my painting. Different kinds of brush strokes were used depending on what i was painting. For the sky, i used horizontal, back and forth strokes to create the gradient look. The mountains were different though. Mountains have a lot of value and structure. I  used diagonal motions with the brush either up or down, also going in different directions to show the dimensions of the mountain. To create a leafy texture on the trees, i took my brush and using only paint on the end, dabbed it everywhere i wanted leaves to be. This created a spotted look, mimicking leaves, and also allowed there to be space behind the leaves where the mountain could be seen. I used value in my painting by making the sky fade from a darker coral-red color behind the mountain, to a light pink, or cream color at the top of the sky. I also used value on the mountain with the gray-scale colors, this also allowed me to make the mountain appear more dimensional.