'The Remarkables, New Zealand' - Painting Process Photos and Final Art Work

I painted this small art work of the Remarkables Mountains in Queenstown, New Zealand a few weeks ago on a wooden canvas panel. I love painting small art works as you can create some real gems and it's great for your painting skills.

In this blog post I will show you the process of how I created this painting.

I began by arranging my photo reference and then sitting down with my sketch book and compiling some pencil drawings to design the composition. This was one of the reference photos I used.

This is my pencil drawing which I referred to when painting this artwork, I think it is essential to plan the composition in a sketch book before starting the painting.

I actually acquired this wooden board which was prepared with a layer of burnt umber mixed with ultramarine blue to create a very dark tone. I sketch out the scene using quinacridone magenta mixed with titanium white.

As I block in the painting the dark canvas the colours jump off the canvas. The dark base helps me establish my colours and tonality of the painting. In the blocking in stage I am not too concerned with detail, I just want a base from which to work on when I start building up the detail. I use desaturated colour in the background to make the mountains recede.

With the block-in complete I wait for it to dry so I can then begin working in the detail.

Here I start working on the detail of the the mountains, the rocks in the foreground and the willow tree on the left. In this stage of the painting I am trying to get my tones right so the colours in the painting are cohesive and harmonious.

As I was modelling the paint I felt the fir tree in the background wasn't working so I got rid of it.

After many many hours spent modelling the painting and refining the elements of this art work it was finally starting to come together. I have used my most saturated colour in the foreground and I am saving my lightest tones until the end of the painting to make it come alive.

And this is the final painting. I add highlights in the leaves of the willow tree and sparkles on the rocks where the water is reflecting the sun.

The Remarkables, 180mm x 250mm, oil on wooden panel.

And to show you the size of this painting, this is it set up on my pochade box easel in my art studio.

I hope you enjoyed this blog, I have more painting demos on my website: samuelearp.com