Painting in the rain

Today I’m sharing the progression for my last painting, ‘Falling In.’

My son asked me to paint a scary tree.  With a rainy day washing out everything else, we settled into the studio and painted. All. Day. Long.

It’s huge – 24″ x 48″

Please forgive my mediocre camera.

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My primary obstacle in prepping a canvas this huge: the huge amount of paint needed. I consumed an entire tube of green and a half tube of black. I watered down the paints for the middle part in a Solo cup. Then I went to work, broad stroking from the center outward. It took well over an hour. It was a pretty good arm workout!

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I’d always known exactly what I wanted to do with this piece. A tree. It’s branches pulled and stretched toward an alternate dimension. I painted the trunk and fatter branches with two different broad brushes. The hardest part was yet to come.

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To get the long, spiraling, skinny branches done, I broke out a tiny wedge brush and an extremely fine-point brush. It was tedious work, but I loved it. Like a demonic tail, the stretching tree limbs coiled toward the center. The blacks showed up better against the greens than I’d hoped. The hours I’d put in: well worth it.

 

For more of my paintings, go here.

To fall into my ocean of dark fiction, sci-fi, horror, and philosophy books, try this link.

J Edward Neill

About grimwain

J Edward Neill is a surreal artist and author. He lives in a cavern in North GA, where the sun shines too much, but the bourbon is fantastic.
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