My Travel Paintings - Mount Rainier Skyline Trail
A Walk in the Wood Along the Skyline Trail. This was a point along the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier National Park when I turned around to take in this amazing view of Mount Adams and other peaks around the Paradise area. Okay, I'd been doing that most of that morning and hike, but this was one of those spots I really liked with the nearby trees and trail. The views along this hike and down to Reflection Lake were amazing and the temps were that perfect coolness for an Autumn day in Washington! That's the story behind this captured image that I posted here on Flickr back in 2015 (www.flickr.com/photos/14723335@N05/29743316664/in/album-7...).
As I started to digitally paint this, I had a few things I wanted to focus. One was figuring out how I wanted to paint the trees. I haven't really worked well with trees other than the typical evergreens I often see while hiking in the mountains. In some future paintings, I plan on working on more deciduous type trees...still a work in progress! On this trail with the image captured that was the case with evergreen type trees except for the nearby one on my left. In order to keep a consistency with the setting, I kept them all the same and used variations in tone with hues of greens and some yellows. That allowed for a feeling of depth with one tree seemingly in front of the other along this trail. I also tried different brushes and strokes to match the effect I wanted: an impressionist brush for rocks and the mountainsides, rake brush for evergreens and other trees, dry media brush for skies with a lowered opacity to add green or violet (at the upper and lower portion, respectively), and finally an oil brush for clouds and then to blend the mixtures of the shades from dark gray to white.
In the center left foreground of the painting, you'll find that stick figure image of me "hiking" with my Cubbies hat, loving my time exploring Mount Rainier once again :-)
My Travel Paintings - Mount Rainier Skyline Trail
A Walk in the Wood Along the Skyline Trail. This was a point along the Skyline Trail in Mount Rainier National Park when I turned around to take in this amazing view of Mount Adams and other peaks around the Paradise area. Okay, I'd been doing that most of that morning and hike, but this was one of those spots I really liked with the nearby trees and trail. The views along this hike and down to Reflection Lake were amazing and the temps were that perfect coolness for an Autumn day in Washington! That's the story behind this captured image that I posted here on Flickr back in 2015 (www.flickr.com/photos/14723335@N05/29743316664/in/album-7...).
As I started to digitally paint this, I had a few things I wanted to focus. One was figuring out how I wanted to paint the trees. I haven't really worked well with trees other than the typical evergreens I often see while hiking in the mountains. In some future paintings, I plan on working on more deciduous type trees...still a work in progress! On this trail with the image captured that was the case with evergreen type trees except for the nearby one on my left. In order to keep a consistency with the setting, I kept them all the same and used variations in tone with hues of greens and some yellows. That allowed for a feeling of depth with one tree seemingly in front of the other along this trail. I also tried different brushes and strokes to match the effect I wanted: an impressionist brush for rocks and the mountainsides, rake brush for evergreens and other trees, dry media brush for skies with a lowered opacity to add green or violet (at the upper and lower portion, respectively), and finally an oil brush for clouds and then to blend the mixtures of the shades from dark gray to white.
In the center left foreground of the painting, you'll find that stick figure image of me "hiking" with my Cubbies hat, loving my time exploring Mount Rainier once again :-)