OUTDOOR PAINTING
2
KEEP TONES CLOSE
With the composition sketched
out, the sky went in first as it’s the
most distant element – and also the
brightest. On a smaller painting and
a day with low wind, the cloud forms
stay still long enough for you to be
able to really pay attention and paint
them as they are. On other days when
the wind is stronger and you’re trying
to cover a large area of board, this just
isn’t possible.
Keep your edges soft on the clouds,
as they are by far the softest thing
in the image and remember to keep
your tones close. The dark undersides
of clouds are normally nowhere near
as dark as you may initially suspect,
so keep the tonal range close in the
sky. This in turn will free you up to
employ a wider tonal range in the
rest of the painting.3
PLACE COLOURS
The first line of distant hills
appeared very blue to me and it’s only
in views like this when you can see for
20 miles or more that this normallyoccurs. You need a very clear line of
sight for a very long way to ever see
a pure “blue” hill.
The closer to the horizon that
elements appear, the more they
bunch up – assuming that the fields
themselves are relatively uniform in
their size and shape as is the case
here. As I work down, they gently
spread out and appear greener. At this
stage, I’m just placing colours and not
paying too much attention to my
marks or textures – that comes later.