In this painting demonstration I show you how to paint winter willow trees in a landscape inspired by the South Island of New Zealand. Painting deciduous trees can sometimes be a bit tricky because the values of the stems and branches can be lighter than when they are in full leaf, so if you don’t get the values correct they can get lost in a landscape painting.
Whenever I paint a landscape I never just get straight into it, I always do some planning first and the planning always begins with my sketchbook. But why sketch and draw, why not just start painting? Well there is a simple answer, if you go straight into a studio painting it’s likely you’ll run into trouble with the composition.
Planning a painting in your sketchbook first is an important step in the painting process in my opinion. You wouldn’t start building a house with no foundations or prior plans and drawings, it’s the same when planning a painting. Besides which drawing and sketching is fun.
In this step by step painting demonstration I am going to show you how to paint this mountain landscape shown in the picture below. This landscape painting is based on Mount Talbot in Fiordland, New Zealand. It is a huge mountain range which ultimately leads to the epic Milford Sound, this is a great subject for landscape painting.
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