MATERIALS
• 50cm x 40cm Mont Marte canvas
• Mont Marte Gesso
• Mont Marte Titanium White
• Mont Marte Sap Green
• Mont Marte Ivory Black
• Monte Marte Yellow Ochre
• Monte Marte Raw Umber
• Winton Alizarin Crimson
• AP Cobalt Blue Hue
• Mont Marte fan brush
• Monte Marte fine brush
• Monte Marte round brush size 12
STEP ONE
Having given the canvas one coat of Gesso the day before, I painted roughly half the canvas with a light mixture of Titanium White and Cobalt Blue mix, added a little Alizaria Crimson and Titanium mix and finally added whispy white clouds with Titanium White, all painted with the one brush. Next the ground area was painted with a thin mixture of Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre and White.
STEP TWO
With a mixture of Sap Green and Ivory Black I painted the shadows and background trees, then kept lightening the mixture for the foreground trees by using more green, using the no. 12 brush.
STEP THREE
The trunks of the grass trees (Xanthorrhoeas) were roughly painted with Raw Umber and a little black using a small brush, and grasses were added here and there with the fan brush.
STEP FOUR
Again with Raw Umber and a little black, the stems of the grass trees were painted in with a kind of dabbing effect to show that they are naturally rough and uneven; I did this with small pieces of cardboard. Then, I used my fine brush to paint the spikes of the grass trees using Sap Green, Ivory Black and a little Yellow Ochre.
FINAL STEP
I finished off the spikes, adding a few in Alizarin Crimson, added more grasses using the fan brush and generally tidied up the whole painting. I was fortunate with this painting as these grass trees are on our property and I can see the beautiful sunrises over the bush forever changing and always beautiful. I was told that an artist must never use black and yet an early morning bush sometimes looks very black to me, so for this very reason my painting has lots of black in it. I hope you all like it.
