Mountains for Cailin

I painted some mountains for Cailin! Well actually.. It was for Cailin to give to Jordan. She commissioner me to create an image of his favourite mountain range. One that held a lot of positive memories. 

I made a digital sketch to figure out the composition and colours and sent this to Cailin. Once she was happy with it I started on the actual canvas.

The overall shape was blocked out. And I got the sky to a place I liked. There is lots of variation in the colour, but it is subtle. I looks like there is weather and wind at the top of the mountain.

I started working on the gradient that makes up the bulk of the mountain. I loved how the painting looked at this stage. It was so warm and simple. And I always seem to respond positively to simple, gradual gradients.

I put on a layer of darker colour in blues and greens. But it really didn’t look right. It was fighting with the gradient of the overall mountain. It flattened it and took away the depth.

So I painted over it.

Reapplied the red shadows. And created a more subtle green gradient. Remembering what I have figured out in the digital sketch.

I applied a more transparent version of the blue shadows, and hated it even more than the last time! It looked messy and rough.

I painted over the mountain again!!

Reapplied the red shadows and green-blue gradient.

I added the overall dark form as the forefront of the image. I thought this would help me figure out the colour balance of the blue shadow. The gradient of the overall mountain also changed. And went more towards a purple. This helped to unify the whole thing.

And finally, the blue shadows were applied. This time it was a mix between being transparent and solid. I paid more attention to the type of edge the shapes had and did a better job of mimicking the texture of natural rock. Trees were added to the forefront and the whole thing was unified with a few more subtle light grazes on the yellow part of the mountain.

After letting the painting rest for a night and making sure I was still happy with it the next morning. I packed it away ready to go it’s new home! Since I was working on this only on the weekends it had been sharing space with me for over a month. I had grown used to it and was a bit sad to see it go! I hope that it adds brightness, calm and joy to its new home!

If you’d like to commission a piece from me, contact me through my contact page on this site or visit my etsy shop and hit the button “Request Custom Order” on the left side of the shop page.