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Today I’m painting a beginner friendly semi-abstract Autumn woodland scene with slender silver birch trees as the focus, using a limited palette of Aureolin, quin gold, French vermilion, carmine and paynes grey and burnt umber.
I masked out the simple, abstract silver birch shapes with Pebeo drawing gum first to preserve the white paper. The idea is to try to let go and paint a wet in wet abstract Autumn colours background as loosely as possible, aiming to keep it bright and fresh, loosely painted and kept really simple. Then the masking fluid is removed once the washes are dry, and the birch trees painted in loosely, balancing out the tones and adding a focus to the painting. It looks challenging, but it is a simple and exciting process that will probably take a bit of practice, but is really useful for getting beginners used to the way water and paint can flow on the page, and getting balanced tonal values with enough darks, while keeping things fresh and light.
I’m using Millford 100% cotton hot press 140lb/300g weight paper, 11“ x 15“/28cms x 38cms, my paper is taped to my board with ordinary decorators masking tape and is at an angle of about 45 degrees so gravity will help me paint. I use various brushes as demonstrated in the video, but use whichever brushes you have.
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