A peek at my process

Daybreak - 7" x 5", acrylic and china marker on panel, Barbara Mowery 2013. NFS - wedding gift for Anita and Alex Crawford.

I took some (late night) shots of this painting in progress so you could see my painting process. At least this is the process I've been using for a lot of my tree paintings. I don't always go at things the same way.

1) I started with magenta underpainting. If you look closely among the red leaves, you can see that this used to be a horizontal painting of a poultry barn. Then I used light blue to lay in the sky bits first.
2) I added in the darkest darks with a transparent purple.
3) Then came medium-dark greens and some fine turning of the sky tones.
4) And finally I added the highlights in the branches and the glow of the rising sun through the lowest branches.


Here is the final painting. By the time the painting is finished only some little hints of magenta are peeking through, but it really adds depth to the painting and complexity to the colors.


Backing up a little shows off the sky colors and gives a sense of the "glowiness" of the morning sun I was going for. I like giving images of sunrise and springtime as wedding gifts, as the couple begins a new day/season together.