My first experiment painting with acrylic on a wooden painting panel. The inspiration is from the tall eucalyptus trees I see during my weekend hikes.
The hardest part was deciding in what style to paint. Drip style, abstract, or palette knife. I started with drip style but the watercolorist in my head overtook even though the surface was a wooden panel.
The drip style did not come out as I had imagined so I applied a layer of gesso and restarted.
My second attempt was doing the same pattern with palette knife but that was even worse than the first attempt. I was not able to get the variation in the greens and some how trying to make the leaves look “textured” when they are really smooth was a mistake.
In my third attempt instead of the leaves I started with the trunks, because they can be textured and lend well to the palette knife. another round of gesso and I started with a different composition.
Acrylic is definitely forgiving and dries fast. So in between weekend errands I worked on multiple layers. Instead of going with warm shades that would look like “fall shades” I went with cool colors. Hence you see a lot of purple and cool blues. At some places the yellow peaks out but it’s only because I mixed yellow and blue on the surface to make the different green hues.
To accentuate the “cool” tone, also painted the sides of the panel blue.
Will revisit the leaves composition in a future once I can reconcile between the surface and style for it.
Artistory - Art that tells a story 