Woodland Path 6x8

Hello and welcome to another Tonal landscape oil painting demonstration! Today, I'm sharing "Woodland Path," a 6x8 painting that I finished yesterday. This painting is quite similar to a scene I painted about three or four years ago, which you can find in my book in the handling green section. One of the things I did differently this time was shift the reference image to have more of a rusty, taupey sort of feel. I'm really very fond of this kind of scene, and I have quite a few references in my folder that are similar

Woodland Path 6x8

I've been working on MDF (medium-density fiberboard) lately, which is basically compressed wood dust. I prefer panels over canvas. I've been reviewing a lot of different landscape painting books studying the techniques used by other artists lately. Sometimes working on canvas can be lovely, but it can also be distracting, especially when the texture is too pronounced.

In this painting, I decided to revisit this scene I had painted before, but on a smaller scale. I've been looking at some of my old videos recently, I've learned a lot about simplifying complex forest scenes over the years. One insight I'd like to pass along is to focus on the big shapes and group dark masses together to create a more simplified breakdown of the scene. This is very helpful when dealing with the overwhelming complexity of a forest.

Another tip is to be careful with painting bright fall colors. It's easy to go overboard and end up with a colorful mess. Instead, bring in the saturated colors sparingly and support them with greens, browns, and other natural tones. In this painting, I aimed to capture the essence of fall without letting the extreme colors take over the painting.

Until next time, take care of yourself, your family, and all your loved ones and stay out of trouble!

Cheers,

M Francis McCarthy