Mixing a grey from a Primary and its
Complimentary provides you with a rich tone
that can be easily shifted warm or cool.I use the opaque grey I’ve mixed to cut
in and shape the rough underpainting of
the tree. I try to be quite determined in this,
like giving a tree a hard-prune! If my paint
doesn’t cover completely, that’s okay; the
underpainting “holds” the grey in place. If I
wanted to get really finicky, I could use my
smaller No4 brush here, but I like the broad
marks this No12 Top-Acryl makes for the sky- it’s the perfect size for my cloudy effect.
Turning the paper in different directions
helps get my point in there.
Although a steady hand is the ideal, you can
always correct your lines with some sky-
coloured paint.I do need the fine Top-Acryl round
brush to touch up and add to the branches,
though. The Indigo High Flow sits in this
brush nicely, so if I’m careful I can just hit
the surface with the tip and draw a thin
line of colour out of it. These lines are dark,
increasing the tonal variety and therefore
the depth in the tree.Applying the paint vertically along the hedge helps to balance this strong horizontal element.
Working down the paper, I paint in the hedge using a mixture of Chromium Oxide Green and Raw Sienna, with a
touch of the Indigo High Flow Acrylic (all Golden products intermix easily). To add depth to the hedge, I drop some
Transparent Pyrrole Orange onto the green, and some Indigo along the base. Wiping back with my finger brings some of
the underpainting back into it, adding a bit of depth and another type of mark.