http://www.painters-online.co.uk artist 35PRACTICAL
TA w
MATERIALS
l Schmincke PRIMAcryl acrylics:
transparent golden yellow, Indian
yellow, transparent orange, carmine,
burnt sienna, cobalt turquoise, cobalt
blue, ultramarine, phthalo green blue,
transparent violet, titanium white.
l Clear painting medium
l Brushes: Stirling flat 6/4, DaVinci round
No. 4, rigger No. 2
l White gesso
l Mountboard
l 2B pencilApril 2021Painting trees
and
woodlands
In the third of four articles on the elements of the
landscape, Barry Herniman demonstrates how to
paint trees and woodlands in acrylics
U
nless you live in a treeless
landscape like the Orkney
islands or Patagonia in
Argentina, two places I have
visited, you won’t be far from trees and
woodland. I live in the Wye Valley and
am lucky to have an abundance of trees
and woods that I never tire of painting
in all their different moods throughout
the seasons.
With all the travel restrictions imposed
due to Covid-19 during 2020 and so far
in 2021, I have taken to painting a series
of local views that are inevitably heavily
biased towards all things woody. I lovep STAGE ONE
After coating a piece of off-cut mountboard with white gesso I waited for it to dry then pencilled
in the main outlines of the subject with my 2B pencilDEMONSTRATION Morning Light, Early Frosts
Whilst on one of my early morning walks
that takes me past a secluded house, I
caught this lovely scene with the sunlight
catching the trees and long shadows over
the ground frost.painting trees, whether singularly or as
a group, as they are so much a part of
our native landscape. A lovely quotation
from Khalil Gibran – ‘Trees are poems
that the earth writes upon the sky’ –
conjures up feelings in words that we, as
painters, can reproduce in paint.Greens without green
Skeletal winter trees are a joy to paint
as a fair amount of drawing is involved,
especially when outlining the filigree
patterns of the branches and twigs.
Until recently I would always shy away
from painting trees in verdant summerBarry Herniman
organises and tutors painting holidays
in the UK and abroad and is available for
workshops and painting demonstrations to
art clubs. To join his mailing list for future
events email [email protected].
Barry’s Cloverleaf Paintbox is available
online at: cloverleafpaintbox.com. His
books Painting Mood and Atmosphere in
Watercolour and Painting Landscapes in
Acrylics are available at discounted prices
from our online bookshop:
http://bit.ly/3cw1AUX.
http://www.barryherniman.comfoliage. All those greens! Now I
realise that I was missing out on some
wonderful British landscape scenes
because of it.
By getting away from painting greens
with green, instead using an array of
blues and yellows plus a combination
of different colours, I found I had
opened up a whole new palette of
both subtle and exciting greens. I have
held workshops on this very topic and
students have produced some really
exciting paintings, once they got over
the fact they would not be using the
colour green to produce their greens.