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Friday, September 25, 2009

Berries & Birch~Version #1 Completed



SOLD

I spent far more time than I intended on this but one thing lead to another and I got caught up in painting berries, adding twiggy little branches and general overall tweaking. Oddly, the berries turned out to be the biggest challenge. I mixed a combo of pyrrol red and perm. yellow for the orange. Pyrrol red, if you haven't tried it yet, is a potent color and it completely overtook the perm. yellow on the gesso. I waited until the first application of paint was dry, then gently lifted out the berries with a damp brush. The perm. yellow held onto the gesso and the pyrrol red stained just enough to create the shade of orange I was shooting for. I used some of the color mixture from the trunks to add shading and depth to the berry clusters. I created the twigs with the pointed tip of a bamboo skewer soaked in water, then dipped in undiluted tube paint.


Btw, the mystery tree with the berry clusters is a form of Mountain ash.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very very pretty Billie. Is it a tree near you? I bet it is a pretty picture IRL. It will make some lovely holiday cards. I hope your gallery sells out.

Billie Crain said...

Yup, this tree grows directly across the drive from my front windows. I won't be making cards with this one, tho. It's not bad but I'm not exactly thrilled with the results. Happy with comp but not colors. It was only meant to be a trial run for a larger piece. I'm still considering other options for the final.

Thanks for the well wishes! Right back at ya!:)

Tracey said...

Very nice & yes great idea for a xmas card. I remember the photo you took as I just loved the red of the berries against the cool bark. You did a great job capturing them!