Stories Around the Campfire

I don't know about you, but I can't wait until winter is over! (If there was even a winter here in California) It was more like perpetual fall minus the rain. I'm not complaining though because I absolutely don't like the cold :)

One of the things I regret not doing last summer was going camping! So that is a must-do for this coming summer! It's such a shame because I live relatively close to Yosemite National Park so I really have to take advantage of that.

I was real excited to get home last night and start painting. My painting was inspired by a picture of a campfire scene I saw online a few days ago and I couldn't wait to get started. This is the first time I was basing a painting on a picture so I was kind of nervous since I had to use my best judgement.

My canvas wasn't too long so I couldn't really capture the whole starry night scene like in the photograph, but I'm still very happy with the outcome :) I had a hard time with the night time sky color...it took me awhile to get that tinge of blue and lightness. I feel like I'm learning more and more each time though! I used techniques from the tree branch tutorial and techniques that I've read online and in books. Which reminds me! I ordered 4 books on acrylic painting on Amazon yesterday, so excited! I'll write and review them in future posts :) I hope they really help me in this painting adventure.

Anyways, here's my 6th painting entitled Stories Around the Campfire :)

Tree Branches Galore

Ah...the alluring trees. So beautiful. So calming. Although viewing them from the comfort of your backyard is a whole different story compared to painting them on a fresh canvas. I always believed that learning to paint a tree was a big staple to any artist's beginner skills, so I set out on my journey to learn! :) As I was swimming through the tutorials on YouTube ( it's such a practice in decision making skills, I want to try them all!) I finally found the video I was going to stick through for my practice in painting tree branches. In this video, artist Amy Pearce shows us how to paint a pretty spooky looking tree. She's using oil in her tutorial but the same techniques can be applied to acrylics.

I followed the basic form of the tree and then added the branches using thick to thin brushes along the way. This was great practice for using fine strokes, but frustrating too because I have shaky hands. I then did the highlights as shown in the video and that really made it come alive.

In Amy's painting she used a bluish background, but I decided to go for a darker theme and used a pale moon instead as my source of light. I painted my moon by looking at pictures trying to get that dirty white hue to it and trying to add pockets of gray for the craters. I used my fingers a lot to blend it and then gave it a textured look. It came out alright but I'll try to work on my moons! :)

And voila! Here's the result of my 4th painting! I took my first baby step in using a larger canvas this time (instead of the 12x12 canvas panels) and I'm glad it wasn't just blobs of paint because canvases are pretty expensive! :)

The "textured" look I was talking about :)

Overall, it was a great tutorial for learning to paint a tree and its branches! Next time I will definitely be experimenting with adding leaves/flowers :)