Painting the Twelve Apostles, Australia

The 'Twelve Apostles' is a group of sea stacks located along the Great Ocean Road, in Victoria, Australia. I visited for the first time in November 2015 and I was so inspired I had to paint it.

In this blog post I will show you my painting process of how I created this art work of the Twelve Apostles.

Twelve Apostles, 24" x 30", oil on canvas.

This was one of the reference photos I used to create the composition.

Once I gathered my photos I was going to use I sat down with my sketch book and did a load of pencil sketches to design a composition. This was my final sketch.

I produced a colour study as well and when I was happy with that, I started my canvas painting.

I start my canvas with a layer of burnt sienna, which I love painting on as it really helps with establishing my colours on the canvas. You can also use burnt umber as a background. 

I start by blocking in the sky and clouds.

Next I paint the distant cliffs with a mixture of ultramarine blue, burnt umber, quinacridone magenta and titanium white for the shadows and burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow oxide for the highlights. I used the ultramarine blue to cancel out the saturation of the cliffs.

Next I block in the sea stacks and the rest of the cliffs. I pay attention to the tonality of my painting to make sure the sea stacks and cliffs recede.

I finish blocking in the sea and the sand. I mix a combination of ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, pthalo green and I use burnt umber to knock out some of the saturation of the sea.

I start adding detail to the clouds and painting the reflected light in the sea stacks.

I start painting the detail in the cliffs and adding light on the seas by the sea stacks. For this I mixed cobalt teal, a little yellow oxide and titanium white. 

I start adding the white water.

I wasn't happy with some of the clouds so I decided to repaint this section. This is totally ok to do, if something is not working in your painting it's very easy to change it it. I also continued to build up the details of the foam patterns and white water in the sea.

And this was the final painting.

Here is another photo of the Twelve Apostles, its a beautiful spot, you must visit!

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and if you found this blog post interesting and helpful.

If you would like to see more of my art work check out my website.

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