Winter Tree exercise [11”x15”, acrylic]

I started this little painting exercise before Christmas in my art class.  Sharon demonstrated the process for creating a “tree portrait” in a similar style to what David Langevin uses in his paintings.  If you are interested in David’s process I found a very cool YouTube video “David Langevin: Tree Portraiture” which explains his approach.  I found it fascinating.

My Winter Tree painting is at the “wait and think” stage below.  I think there will be a bit of tweaking on the sky yet. 

The following pics show the painting at various stages.  I don’t have a photo of the first step…  To the white watercolor paper, I applied Golden light molding paste with a palette knife to indicate the branches of the trees.  I also applied some soft gel gloss to the edges and stamped into it.  This layer was allowed to fully dry before any paint was applied.

This was a lot of fun and definitely expanded my understanding how multiple layers of acrylic paint can a beautiful luminous surface.  Enjoy!