Adventures in Oil

Today I started an oil painting and what an adventure it is becoming. I want to play with light as well as color and include aspects of Brussels - rain, parts of downtown and the wonderful wooded areas. So I am taking "poetic" (or should I say "artistic") license in this painting by incorporating them into one scene. This is what I have accomplished so far.

I plan to work more color and light variations into the trees on the right tomorrow. 

Touching base

I found my time consumed with much more than painting this spring and never got around to posting more about my journey. Today, I hung the paintings on the wall and though I can see some areas that need touching to help the flow, they are pretty much complete.

March

By March, I had started realizing that I wanted to do a study of styles while creating these paintings. Each one of the seven canvases was going to explore the use of a different technique. These are four of the canvases currently being worked on. 

The top center canvas is focusing on the maple tree in the background using acrylic paint with 10% structure gel, palette knifes and small, flat tipped paint brush.

The bottom canvas is using light texture to create a 3-D effect for the trees. More paint is applied to the birch trees and rock in the foreground, less paint is used in the background. Paint is applied using a palette knife or small, flat tipped paint brush. No structure gel is being used. 

Two of the side canvases are in flux. A thought for the blue canvas is possibly incorporating newspaper for the trees with smooth textures in the background. Still trying to figure out how to do this. 

On the painting in the background, my thought is to utilized stippling throughout.

Any thoughts/ideas?