Backdrop Painting Part 2

 After experimenting with my colours I found a blue grey to use as my mountain base. I worked in smaller sections and painted the mountain base colour then used the palette knife to work in white paint for the snow. By dragging the white paint I could block in larger snow fields or smear the white with the mountain base colour to mix the two, creating the illusion of rocks and ridges on the mountains. I was much happier with this technique. The photos here show the results of the mountains. The foreground hills will be the subject of a future post. 

The snow on the high peak near my face was from the first attempt. I'm working from left to right. 

Backdrop part 1

With a few nerves, I decided to scrub in a mountain horizon. I had several landscape photographs in front of me at the time which seemed to help with coming up with a skyline I was happy with. I then scrubbed in the foreground hills. Once dry, both colours appeared too dark. I decided to carry on and see what snow and highlights on the foreground hills would like. In doing so I discovered I'd made a mistake. When I painted the practice board I did each side in one sitting. It was small and the base layer of paint was still damp when you layered on the snow and highlights. This meant the palette knife could mix and blend the colours and create nice transitions. I found trying to smear white paint onto the dry base colour seemed to yield a pretty flat and lifeless scene. 

Given I wasn't happy with the colours anyway I decided to try again and this time, rather than try and do the whole vista at once, I will work in smaller sections. I feel more confident doing this as I have worked out a good recipe for a new mountain background colour. More about that in a future post. 

Before...

After scrubbing in the mountain and foreground hill base colours. 

Looking the other way. I decided both colours were too dark. 

Experimenting with adding snow and definition to the scene.
I decided to paint over this with a lighter base colour and start again. However, even this first attempt demonstrates what an improvement even a basic backdrop can make to a scene.