These artist’s notes are copyright to Graham Baker and may not be shared or copied without permission. Any enquiries, please email to grahambaker@gmail.com.
Oil painting on canvas. 48x36 inches. 120cm x 90cm.
Natural elements in a painting look best when produced with a free mind and a simple style. Essentially abstract. This loose work is more natural and it is also faster. This time I mixed the techniques of Layering and Tiling to see if I could paint nature in a controlled way. By playing around with these techniques I was getting away from relying on a formula. I was experimenting.
My plan was to work each area wet and continue down the mountains using the Tiling technique. 
I had the advantage of using oils. This gave me plenty of time to throw the colours around. 
It’s a good idea to do a few quick paintings to get an overall feel for the subject before we start the final version. Repeating the painting a few times over brings familiarity and helps you relax.
What can happen though, is we decide the painting at this stage is good enough and stop. That is fine. An artist can stop painting anytime they are happy with the work and declare it finished. Keep an open mind. Often the test paintings are better than what we were aiming for.
I found I could detail in black for shadows and white for detail. The colours went on as a blend over the detailing. This seemed a way to get some wonderful colour effects. I had switched to layering. The next image shows up-close how that was done.
It looks like a lot of work but it is all in the way I detailed by rolling the brush downwards following the contours of the land. I will demonstrate that technique another time.
I had to backtrack a couple times before I was happy with the results. 
Each time things went wrong I painted it out and started again. The technique evolved. 
From here on I detailed in white then washed translucent colours over, when the detailing was dry.
Once the detailing was complete the colouring up was fun and fast. Blending, tonal changes, in control all the way. I had plenty of time to stand back and play with the colours, even throwing in some that I felt were needed, that were not in the copy.
This method is the opposite to the way we paint. Normally, we draw the layout, paint the colours, shapes and lines then finish with detailing.I am sure mixing techniques is done all the time. The value for me was I had found a way to paint nature the way I see it. I wasn’t after photorealism, the painting still has a slightly handcrafted look.
I went on to use this method in other paintings.
These artist’s notes are copyright to Graham Baker and may not be shared or copied without permission. Any enquiries, please email to grahambaker@gmail.com.
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