Painting Mountains Outdoors in Quickly Disappearing Light!!!

Hello Steemers

Winter is pretty much here in southern New Zealand and we've had a spell of cold weather overnight which has brought snow to the mountains. I've been working in the area today surveying trees and I as I was driving around I was really appreciating the mountains with the fresh snow. 

I always carry my painting gear in the back of my car so as soon as I finished work I decided to paint a view of the Crown Range mountains, outdoors on location known as painting en plein air. I had to be quick as I had about an hour and a half of daylight left, winter is nearly here and the days are short.

This is what I painted and I'll show you how I created it.

Crown Range, New Zealand, 8" x 12", oil on canvas panel, painted en plein air.

This was the view I decided to paint, I had to be super quick in painting this as the light was already disappearing as you can see, the foreground is in shadow.

I set up my easel and got painting straight away.

I'm painting on a small 8" x 12" canvas panel which I prepared earlier with a layer of burnt sienna, this helps me with colour and tone.

The colours I used to paint this art work included: 

Titanium white

Burnt sienna

Yellow oxide

Cadmium yellow

Cadmium orange

Perylene crimson

Ultramarine blue

Phthalo green

I sketch out the composition with burnt sienna.

The light was seriously disappearing fast and I had to work quickly. Normally I start my painting with the sky or establishing my darkest values first but in the case I painted the area in light in the mid ground so I could get the hue right before the light disappeared.

I mixed the green with yellow oxide, ultramarine blue, a little cadmium yellow, burnt sienna and titanium white.

One thing about painting outdoors is it really does teach you to paint quickly and in this case there was no messing about. I established the clouds using titanium white mixed with yellow oxide for the highlights and for the shadows I mixed ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, perylene crimson and titanium white.

I painted the sky with ultramarine blue and titanium white.

I used the the same colours for the snow as I did with the cloud highlights. The shadows in the snow were created with ultramarine blue, perylene crimson and titanium white. I have to keep in mind that the mountain is still in light and therefore tonally lighter than the foreground.

Next I paint the conifer trees in the foreground, these are the darkest values in the painting and I create these dark tones with ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, yellow oxide and phthalo green.

The grass in the foreground is much darker in tone and this is what will give the illusion of shadow and depth in the painting. I mix the dark green with ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, burnt umber and I vary the hue by adding in places a little phthalo green and perylene crimson, this gives texture to the grass.

At this stage of the painting I had around half an hour of daylight left so I really had to get a move on, luckily I was at the stage where I was tidying up and refining the painting. 

I've been painting outdoors a lot lately and it's really helping me paint quickly as well as improving my colour mixing and understanding of tone.

This is the finished painting, I completed it from start to finish in an hour and a half.

My finished painting on my easel.

I hope you enjoyed this painting tutorial, check out my website for more painting demos and my art: samuelearp.com 

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