Daily Painting #24 — The One I Completely Buggered Up (…and Fixed)
Well I wrestled with this one folks. Painting #24 was not an easy one to start with... and I really managed to bugger it up. Then with about 5 mins to go I was like … nope, this needs a “rewrite”, and I stood back and went… ok… and covered over most of the foreground. Dramatically improved it, thank goodness.
Don’t forget it is still a 1-hour painting — not a huge masterpiece work :-)
For those that don’t know, I am doing 1 daily painting EVERY day this month, partly to get my hand back into painting and partly to kick myself into blogging more frequently.
🎨 Colours & Process
Underpainting:
Warm burnt sienna wash (yes… again).
Sky:
- Cobalt blue
- Titanium white
- Whisper of burnt sienna
- A tiny bit more sienna near the horizon — any more and it goes green.
Grass (right side):
- Distant grass: chromium green + raw sienna + white
- Foreground grass: same mix but with a super smidge of cad yellow
Trees:
- Ultramarine blue
- Burnt umber
- Cad yellow (…too much as it turns out)
The right trees ended up darker than intended. I meant them to be a paler blue-green to push them back into the distance. Didn’t quite happen.
Fence posts:
- Brown mix (burnt umber + ultramarine)
- Highlights: white + a touch of blue
The Kerfuffle
The foreground… OMG.
I thought “let’s add detailed grass”… and it looked beyond dreadful.
Too bright, too yellow, too fussy, too badly painted and just… ick.
So I scrubbed over the whole area and simplified the shapes.
MUCH better. It instantly read like part of the same painting.
1-hour daily painting… learning something every day… success :-)
📸 Photowalk
On the way home from school drop I pulled over twice to snap some reference photos.
There’s a big open area near us and I was hoping to catch the local kangaroos (yep, we literally have a family living in this park). Not today — they were probably lounging somewhere in the long grass.
Then I stopped at the bushland park around the corner for more painting ideas.
The sounds were SO AUSTRALIAN — exactly what you'd expect from the Aussie bush.
General Life Update
Tonight is presentation night for BOTH girls.
Happily it’s the only day this fortnight that we don’t have dancing as well, which is amazing.
So this one had to be a before-lunch painting session.
We are almost at the finish line for school and ballet… so close…
But of course the next week is going to be totally chaotic. As always.
Thanks again for following the madness — 24 down… how on earth will I survive to 30? 😂
