How to Paint Sunlit Trees in Acrylic with Denise Allen

Denise demonstrates how to paint sunlit trees using wet-in-wet techniques and a large brush, ensuring the scene stays lively and dynamic.
“The more I paint the more I enjoy experimenting and discovering the different marks that can be made with my brushes. I am also trying to get away from being too representational and find that starting a painting with a big brush prevents me from being too rigid or fussy. Even if I go on to use smaller brushes for adding detail later, the big brush enables me to cover my canvas rapidly, allowing me to get on to the fun bit very quickly!”

Materials List

• Surface:
• Stretched cotton canvas medium grain 36 x 24″
  
  
• Colours:
• Acrylics:
• Titanium White
• Ultramarine Blue
• Phthalo Turquoise
• Raw Umber
• Burnt Sienna
• Brick Red
• Rouge
• Cadmium Yellow Pale
• Yellow Ochre
  
  
• Brushes:
• Liquitex Freestyle Paddle brush 3″
• SAA Silver Big Flat (1.5″)
• SAA Silver Flatmate (0.5″)

Shop Acrylic

Although the canvas comes ready primed, I nearly always add a layer of primer with a medium tone before I start. I used a light grey, and included a texture to my primer. Here I used ash which adds colour and gives an unpredictable texture that I love.

Source photo – thanks to Valerie McNall, Alberta, Canada

Step 1: Mixing Colours

Starting with the 3” Paddle brush, I mixed Ultramarine Blue with Burnt Sienna and some White to give a warm grey. I added a little water to the mix – I don’t want it to run, but just to cover quickly. This was used to indicate the bushes at the base of the trees. I then added some more Ultramarine and White to suggest the beginnings of the shadows coming forwards.

Step 2: Creating the Sky

The sky was started with a mix of Ultramarine, Phthalo Turquoise and White. I added a rough layer of this mix, concentrating on the top third of the sky area as the rest will be painted over next using a mix of the paint with barely any water. With the paint left in the brush and a little water, I painted down to the bushes, but very quickly as most of this area will be painted over in the next layer. I allowed this to dry to avoid making green when I add yellow later.

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Step 3: Mixing light colours

I mixed a light gold from Yellow Ochre, Lemon Yellow and White and painted this on the bottom two thirds of the sky area, and