STAGE FIVE

I continued to build up colours with acrylic paints, blending colours and refining land shapes. I painted with rough ‘scumbling’ marks into the textured areas to further enhance the contrast between the tree and hedge shapes and the background smoother shapes. The texture gel is a gift! It allows the paint to cling to it so that colours don’t mix inadvertently, creating muddy colours. Highlighting colours are easy to apply. I then drew in some branches using pencil, straightening curves, sometimes softening edges, to further stylise. I also used the end of my brush to scratch in texture in the front hedges. I was thinking about refining the design of the image at this stage so that the eye would be guided successfully around the painting. An attempt to paint a semi-abstracted, simplified reality