Brett Buckley

I want to share with you some of the creative process behind my impressionist painting Big Burleigh Bluff:

I was flipping through some of my favourite photos, and this scene called to me: 

The walk at Burleigh Heads is one of my favourite places, and I remember clearly the awesome rush of power in the place. I wanted to put that feeling into the painting. I pulled it up in ArtStudio and cropped it down to the essentials:

I decided on a toned gesso ground over the entire painting, of one of the more tan coloured grass hues. This should be rich enough to be allowed to show through.

I had a 100 by 70 panel ready to go with some Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper mounted. I diluted and tinted up some gesso and applied it roughly.

But I wasn't happy with the colour—it was too much of an ugly salmon. So I painted over in a transparent coat of raw Sienna:

In the end I think this worked out much better than if I had got the colour correct in the first place—the colour vibrates a little and works well with the few lighter parts of the gesso layer.

I wanted to try some impressionism in this one. My idea was to draw lines for the directions of the brushstrokes I want to make. I’ve started on this in the sky. Using Neocolor II crayons is good because I can easily wipe it away with water. And if it dissolves into the brushstroke it is just serendipity.

Then I started straight in with some acrylic colour. Here I'm being figurative, showing what I imagine to be the invisible flows of humid air.

I used open medium and gel medium with the acrylic paint to give it more body and extend time, so that strokes mix into and taint each other. The little wisps of cloud swirl and climb into the sky. 

Then I began to draw in the lines and shapes for the darker foliage. The idea was that all thin lines will be created as negative shapes. It takes a lot of work, actually.

You get the idea. After that it pretty much came together over the next few days:

These three colours are so versatile, and can create myriad warm browns, greens and greys:

I hope you enjoyed a little peek into the process of painting Big Burleigh Bluff. If you have any questions let me know in the comments.

Happy artloving!

Brett