Another Acrylic

A major difference between acrylics and pastel is the time it takes. I've just finished the acrylic painting shown below and it took me close to three full days to do this. Maybe it will be faster when I get more used to the medium - it's still taking me quite a while to mix up the colours I need.

I'm still using just the three primaries plus white. For this one I used cobalt blue hue, cadmium yellow light and crimson. Occasionally I have added burnt umber if I need to darken the mix. The shadow areas on the background hills use varying amounts of burnt umber.

The blending worked really well. I used a bit of clear medium with all the colours and it seemed to make them last longer, flow better and blend more easily.

The painting process was as follows:

1. Prime the canvas with a thin coating of yellow ochre.
2. Paint in the sky using various tints of Cobalt Blue Hue thinned with clear medium.
3. Paint in the clouds using Titanium White plus greys mixed from primaries.
4. Draw in the outline of the hills with pencil.
5. Block in the main light and shadow areas on the background hills.
6. Block in the foreground hills and then move straight on to finishing this area.
7. Go over the background shadows adding texture with darker and lighter areas.
8. Paint in the light areas of the background hills.

Considering this is only my fourth ever acrylic landscape I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out. This one I think is good enough to sell.

"Desert Road 2", acrylic on canvas, 910 x 305 mm