Evening Outdoor Paint on Lake Macquarie, Australia - Art and Photography

Hello Steemers

I am still in Australia at the moment staying by the edge of Lake Macquarie on the Central Coast, in the state of New South Wales.

I've had a busy last few days but today I had the opportunity to go plein air painting (painting outdoors), so I set up my easel on the lake front and painted the sheoak and gum trees in the evening light.

Here's my finished painting and my painting process of how I created this art work.

Evening at Lake Macquarie, Australia, 8" x 10", oil on canvas panel, painted outdoors 'en plein air'.

This is the view of the lake I painted this afternoon, I really like the sheoak tree at the side of the lake and I like the green of the foliage so I decided tom make this the focal point.

I start by sketching out the scene with a round brush and burnt umber.

I start by painting the sky using a combination of cobalt blue, cobalt teal and titanium white. Next I paint the shadows in the trees so I can establish the tonality of the painting, I'll need to make the distant trees look further away so there is more depth in the painting.

Next I start adding in the areas of foliage that are in light, I desaturate my greens by mixing yellow oxide with ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and titanium white.

I start working on the sheoak tree in the foreground that is the focal point of the painting, the foliage of this tree is naturally an earthy more subdued green so it is a bit more tricky to make this stand out in the painting. However with the desaturated greens I have used in the trees in the background as well as the shadows it should be enough to make it stand out and bring it forward in the painting.

I paint the water using the same colours I used in the sky seeing as that is what it's reflecting, but I also added a little ultramarine blue into the mix.

I start refining the shape of the sheoak tree by adding gaps in the foliage by painting areas of sky. 

I add more foliage to the tree and I increase the saturation of the green by adding cadmium yellow deep into my green mix as well as ultramarine blue, phthalo green, burnt sienna and titanium white.

I paint the grass in the foreground and again I am using more saturated green to make it come forward in the painting.

I introduce twig and branches in the tree.

I complete the painting by adding more detail to the tree trunks and branches and I add the suggestion of branches to the trees in the distance.

I add some cockatoos in the distance, there were loads of them as I was painting and with that my painting is complete.

My finished painting on my easel.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post, check out my website for more of my art: samuelearp.com

Subscribe to my mailing list for news, new paintings and art tips and receive a FREE digital art print download of one of my seascape paintings suitable for printing an image of any size: https://www.samuelearp.com/subscribe/