Painting 'A New Day'

Gemma's painting titled 'A New Day'.

Last month, I was contacted by a lovely lady named Gemma. She commissioned me to paint something special for her.  So in this post I will show you the start to finish images of how I created this original painting.

I made a sketch of the ideas that Gemma had for her painting.  She wanted to include, a hare, badger,fox and a deer with the standing stones next to a stream along with my usual style of landscapes.

I applied three layers of gesso on board , sanding lightly between coats to create a smooth top layer. I used acrylic paints for this painting and started with a light wash of colour for the sky and background hills.

For the foreground and trees, I painted a wash of blues and purples.

While adding layers of colour on the landscape, I started to add, 'Mr Fox', adding details around him like the trees and branches.

I added details of grasses and wild flowers with the deer and standing stones.

Towards the foreground, I painted the badger and on the other side of the painting, I decided the hare would look much better if he was running in the other direction from the sketch I started with.  This created a much better flow to the painting.

After adding the final details to the trees and grasses, I completed the painting by adding the crescent moon to the dawn sky.    Here is the finished commission for Gemma. 'The New Day'.
I finished the painting within one week and let it dry before varnishing and adding a little amount of mica in the tree tops.
 Gemma is picking up her painting today along with 12 greeting cards that I made for her from the painting.

I will be posting on facebook too if you would like to visit my page there, just follow the facebook link on this page.  
Copyright belongs to the artist, so if you would like to share any of these images, please contact me first. This is also Gemma's special painting so do not use without permission.  Thank you.