Out on a hike with my Nikon D-70s, I found this battered stump just as I was returning to my car at sunset. The vibrant moss and the wild tangle of vines caught my eye, and I snapped a photo.
At home, I downloaded the file to my computer and set up my studio for painting.
I made a quick pencil sketch, and broke out my gouache paints. Gouache is like watercolor paint, but opaque if you keep it thick.
I love taping off the margins on a nature journal page, and then setting to work laying in the colors -- big areas first, then delving into the delightful details.
Of course, I picked out the details I liked and painted the rest in generalities. At the end, that's the beauty -- we get to focus on the parts of the scene that inspire us. We're not creating another photograph, but a painting. And in that painting, we express our artist's eye & our spirit.
May you get to follow your artist's eye and express your spirit soon!
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