Painting Outdoors Atop a Mountain in New Zealand - Art and Painting Process

Hello Steemers

I've been painting outdoors again and yesterday I met up with an artist friend in the town of Alexandra in southern New Zealand. We were going to spend the day painting outdoors as Alexandra is surrounded by beautiful rugged mountains. As it's pretty much winter in New Zealand now we had a spell of cold weather that brought snow to the mountains. We wanted to paint some mountain scenes.

In the morning we found a location at the bottom of a mountain range and we set up our easels and painted the view. By lunch time we had finished our first paintings and we decided to see where the dirt track lead to and as my friend had an off road vehicle we decided to see where it went.

The dirt track went on for miles and lead us towards the summit of the mountain. The view was epic and we were above the snow line so we decided to set up our painting easels and paint a scene from the mountain top.

This was the art work I created and I'll show you how I painted it.

'Tussock Grass and Snow', 8" x 10", oil on canvas panel, painted outdoors en plein air.

This was the view I painted, I loved the jagged rocks and boulders and the tussock grass peaking out through the snow.

This is one of the most extreme locations I have painted outdoors in, the dirt track at this altitude was covered in snow and my friends vehicle was sliding down it on the way back down. The view was amazing, although you can't see it that well the town of Alexandra is in the distance.

I set up my Strada painting easel and got to work painting, I had to work quickly as it was cold at this altitude and it looked like there was a possibility it could snow.

I painted this art work on an 8" x 10" canvas panel which I'd prepared earlier with a layer of burnt sienna which helps me with colour and tone. 

The colours I used to create this painting 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.

I started the painting by establishing my darkest values first which in this case was the rock shadows and I mixed with colour with burnt sienna and ultramarine blue which creates a near black. 

I paint the rocks in the distant mountains using the same colours but with some titanium white added to the mix.

Next I paint the sky and the clouds, the weather was changing quickly and the clouds were forming across the top of the mountain. Using titanium white mixed with a little yellow oxide I paint the highlights of the clouds then I mix a small amount of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and perylene crimson to form the cloud shadows.

I paint the sky using ultramarine blue and titanium white.

I paint the areas in light on the rocks using ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, titanium white and yellow.

I start painting the tussock grass in the foreground, I love the golden yellow hues of these mountain grasses that are adapted to the extreme New Zealand mountain climate.

I mix the colours of the tussock grass with cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, yellow oxide and titanium white. I then add ultramarine blue which creates green in mixture and I also mix in burnt sienna to create a dark tone for the base of the tussock grass.

I paint the snow shadow colours at the base of the tussock grass by mixing ultramarine blue, perylene crimson and titanium white.

Next I paint the snow in the foreground using a mixture of titanium white and a little yellow oxide. I refine the shapes of the rocks and add some cracks into the rock faces.

By this stage of the painting it was getting seriously cold and there was ice flying through the air as you can see in the photo here. The wind had picked up and my fingers were frozen!

My painting was pretty much finished and my friend and I decided we should get off the mountain as the weather was looking like it was going to turn to crap. I don't often get the chance to climb mountains but I'm guessing being at the summit of one in bad weather isn't a good thing!

I was able to add some finishing touches to this painting when I got back to the studio, my fingers had also defrosted by then!

My painting on my Strada 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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