Fallen

This Northern Territory artist likes to push the colour boundary … creating vibrant, confident and eye-catching works that are charged with positive energy and exuberant brilliance.

- Kelli Mac

MATERIALS

Selected stretched canvas panel.

Artists’ acrylics: Phthalo Blue; Cobalt Turquoise; Brilliant Violet; Permanent Alizarin; Vermillion; Yellow Ochre; Cadmium Yellow Light; Phthalo Green; Permanent Green Light; Titanium White.

Clear painting medium.

Assorted brushes.

Palette knives.

Cardboard strips.

STEP ONE

Start with a strong all-over background colour of Phthalo Blue mixed with a touch of Phthalo Green to create a vibrant summer feel to the entire painting. Prepare your composition using reference photographs, taking care to ensure that the fallen tree trunk perspective takes the viewer’s eye across the water and into the far bank.

Using a warm mix of Phthalo Blue and Permanent Alizarin, roughly brush in the far bank and background foliage. A small house paint brush purchased at your local hardware shop is ideal for this early background work. Next, using a slightly cooler mix thinned with clear painting medium, draw in the fallen tree and the reflected shadows. Then with a cool mix of Phthalo Blue and Cadmium Yellow Light (again thinned with painting medium), brush some of the reflected foliage onto the water colour.

STEP TWO