Painting a Jagged Peak in Acrylic -Painting Process - Prusik Peak, Washington
A few months ago, a redditor approached me on an amateur painting subreddit to bring one of his most fond childhood holiday destinations to the canvas (or panel in this case). I hadn't much enthusiasm back then to tackle Prusik Peak, as I was painfully aware of my then skill level. Since then however, I've experimented with many more scenes and techniques and finally decided to give it a try. Using this picture:
As always, starting out with grids and a light pencil sketch,
Using a mix of Pthalo Blue and Titanium White, I started the sky at the horizon, incrementally adding more Pthalo Blue as I rose higher in the sky:
As the colours in question were semi-opaque, some of the pencil shows through; good for the sketch, bad for the grids. Next step was the clouds. I evidently need practice with even the most simple of clouds, but it loosely does the job. A mix of Midnight Black, Titanium White and tiny amounts of Pthalo Blue gave:
Next up was the basic shadows of the mountain, using Pthalo Blue, Midnight Black, Titanium White and slight amounts of Yellow Ochre in select places:
Whilst I had dark and grey-ish colours on my palette, the highlights and subtle details was the obvious next step. Defining both the shadows and the highlights is such an important step, as large shadows such as these left blank looks unnatural and rushed.
Now to start on the midground. I had done rough blocking of the trees in their shadow colour, to speed up the process. Also some Burnt Umber shades were used to define rocks and ridges to the far mid-left of the painting:
All that was left to do after this was simple:
- Tree Highlights
- Snow Definition
- Foliage in background
- Foreground ice
Using a mix of Cadmium Yellow Mid, Burnt Umber, Cerulean Blue and Titanium White for the highlights, I used a size 2 round brush for the highlights, tapping very lightly.
A mix of (mainly) Titanium White and Pthalo Blue was used for the ice, which, although not perfect, did the job just fine.
My 51st painting was completed in roughly 5 hours, using Acrylic paint on a 30x40cm panel.
As with the majority of my amateur paintings, this has been given to a close friend of mine.
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