Yellow Brick Road painting and photo

I decided to try my hand at painting from a photograph, something I haven't done since my painting of The Rock of Cashel last year. The photo I chose as my model was one I took last week of an alleyway between two cemeteries, paved in yellow bricks and covered in fresh snow.

This painting took me about a half-hour. It is 5"x7", my preferred canvas size, and is done in acrylics thinned with water. The branches of the trees were created with crumpled plastic wrap dipped in black paint. Several of the trees were cut down or transplanted for this painting. The sky was dabs of Burnt Sienna immediately dabbed over with water and then removed with a paper towel in an attempt to capture the surprisingly pink shade of the sky in the photo. (Like an idiot, I forgot to paint in the sky before painting the trees, so the sky had to be painted around the trees.)


Yellow Brick Road, Nanticoke


Yellow Brick Road photo

The fence required a good deal of tweaking, and the dark border of rotted leaves that defines the base of the fence grew a bit to compensate for my typically skewed perspective. In addition to the plastic wrap, this was my first experiment with spatter. I also used some salt on the yellow bricks themselves, though I daubed it off probably before it could have much effect.

As a further technical note, most of the painting was done with a single brush. A larger brush was used for the spatter, but I don't think I used it for any actual paint application.

Yes, it is typically rushed and slapdash, but I think that overall it is not so bad.