Autumn Woods – A challenge

This is my latest painting, that I am doing as part of a challenge in the Acrylics forum at Wetcanvas.

Recently, Celeste had done a small sized landscape of Autumn Woods and in the Acrylics forum, she was challenged to do it in a much larger format. Elaine and Celeste also decided to welcome anyone else who would be willing to join in and have fun. So the idea is to paint from a vague Autumn reference and create a painting that's better than the reference image. And the main challenge is to do in a big canvas. I had a 18 * 36 canvas lying idle for quite some time, and thought this was the best chance to use it. Though there are no deadlines as such, I get the motivation to paint on seeing the WIPs of everyone, and it's a lot of fun.

I made some additions to the original image by adding a water body in the foreground, and added some reflections of the woods. I love fall reflections and leaves, so wanted to paint them here. This was also since my canvas was too tall for just the trees. This is a WIP that I hope to complete during this weekend. My parents are visiting us so I am not sure how much work is going to get done, but there will be an update on Monday for sure.:-)

Autumn Woods - Stage 1

This is technically the second stage in the painting, the first one was my canvas filled with scribbles from my daughter! And I started thereafter and added the trees in white and grey. I also blocked the darkest darks with ultramarine blue and a lot of green. And I got most of the sky done too. This will be my first layer.

Autumn Woods - Stage 2

On top of it, I have started adding some greens and ochre yellow in the background, indicative of some bushes.

Autumn Woods - Stage 3

The next thing that I do is to add more foliage. A lot of glowing yellows and greens in the top for the leaves, and there are going to be a lot of orange maple leaves right in the middle. A good thing to do here would be to actually do the tree barks to completion and then do the leaves. But I am as impatient as my daughter, if not more, and I want to get a 'feel' of how everything would look together, so I have started with the leaves right away.

Autumn Woods - Stage 4

And then I start adding some more detail to the barks, nowhere near complete though. I add some darker greys and browns to the birch tree barks. This is where my painting is right now. I have spent about 2 nights on this one, and there is still a long way to go.

Autumn Woods - Foliage close up

Here is a little close up of my leaves which fall on the top left of the canvas. I promise that they are leaves, though they don't look so. I will define the shapes properly as I progress and make sure they look like leaves and not some patches of color thrown in.

Autumn Woods - Trees close up

Here is another close up of the barks, which are still only about 20% done. A lot more to do there as well. It is mind blowing to see the progress of everyone else, and I am learning a lot in the process. And having a hell a lot of fun. I can't wait to get my hands on the canvas tonight.

Watch this space for more updates.