Tag: Painting mountains

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Mountains and High Hills in Acrylic

An acrylic painting- a view of mountains and high hills in Australia, with pasture and shearing sheds in the foreground.
The Shearing Sheds

Good morning everyone. I love painting mountains and high hills. And this is my latest acrylic painting for the online course I’m following. As you can see, it’s a beautiful view over to a craggy peak in Australia. And in the foreground there is some rough pasture and a couple of shearing sheds. Admittedly, I didn’t know what the buildings were until our tutor Rod made it clear. To be honest, I’m quite out of my comfort zone with some of these scenes, having no personal knowledge of the country. But, I love the challenge! (My apologies for the fuzzy picture – that’s the last painting on poor paper, because I’ve acquired something better now!)

Mountains and High Hills in Home Territory

A view of a track winding through Pennine hills , a stark, bleak landscape.
The Path through the Hills

Actually, you may have seen this painting before, if you follow my blog. Because I posted it in December last year. And I explained how I altered the lie of the land and the colour emphasis. So that it was more reminiscent of the Pennine Hills in Yorkshire. Of course, these are really high hills and they can be very bleak and devoid of much vegetation. In fact, in sharp contrast to the thickly wooded peaks in the Australian landscapes. But we are encouraged to make the paintings our own, so that’s ok! If you look closely, I have even added a gorse bush, a spikey shrub that grows delicious little yellow blossoms in Spring.

Imaginary Mountains

Mountains and high hills , green in the valley and snow on the peaks.
A Mountain View

Finally, this is an acrylic painting of a view that I made up in my head. And, that’s quite an achievement for me, as my visual imagination is not that strong. But I tried here to show how the highest peaks in a mountainous landscape can remain snow capped for a lot of the year. Also, here I experimented with applying the acrylic with a palette knife. However, I found it very difficult as the paint dries very quickly. But I’d like to try again – does anyone have a tip for this?

As usual, I’ll just remind you that all my original art is for sale at reasonable prices. Just have look at my Gallery- Landscapes here and if you like what you see, visit my Contact Me page here . And send me an email.

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Mountain Studies in Acrylic

Good morning everyone. This is the first of a little series of studies from the online course I’m enrolled on. Actually, I’ve been wanting to paint these mountain studies for a while, but my other projects kept getting in the way! For example, here is the post on dogs for my MeWe gouache group . And here is my work on old masters with Care Visions Healthy Aging . Incidentally these classes are free. So you can see I have been busy!

Mountain Studies

Four studies of mountain landscapes

Here is the full sheet of small studies from a module in the course covering landscape features. And, you might remember that I have already completed the sections on skies and trees. Incidentally, I must say that this is a very useful exercise even though I don’t enjoy doing it as much as painting a whole picture.

A simple mountain view, showing ranges of peaks, in tones of blue.
Mountain Ranges

We began with a vista of mountain ranges unfolding increasingly nearer to the viewer. Admittedly, the acrylic sketch is pretty basic. But the main teaching point was to show aerial perspective by using darker and lighter tones . This makes the faraway peaks look distant and the nearer ones look close. Easy peasy ( when someone explains it to you! )

Mountains with grassy slope in foreground

If you look closely, you can see that I have tried to show how the background hills recede.But the grassy slope although nearer is still a good distance away. In fact, I indicated this by the cool tones of the green. I need more practice here, I think! Please try not to get too distracted by the poor quality paper. ( Note to self : Use the best. )

Alpine Mountain Studies in Acrylic

Snow capped Alpine peaks in blue and white - one of my mountain studies.
Alpine Peaks

Now, this was the fun part! To be honest, I had never tried to paint high peaks and had thought it was too difficult. However, I’m quite pleased with this attempt. And I learnt how to describe form using a dark tone for deep shadow, a dull blue white for the shady side of the snow. And, finally, a brilliant white for the sunlit peaks.

The Rocky Outcrop

A lovely Australian landscape showing a rocky outcrop of red stone - one of my mountain studies.
The Crags

Lastly, a lovely scene of a rocky outcrop, in an Australian landscape where the rock is a strong red colour. Actually, the crags were the challenge in this study and I achieved them using a dragging motion of the brush. And then I modelled them with lighter and darker tones of the sandstone colour.

As you can see, I did learn a lot in this section and I do really appreciate the tutor – Rod Moore of the Learn to Paint Academy. So much so that I was exhausted after it and had to have a rest! Now, back to painting whole landscapes.