Tips for Painting the Spring Landscape

'Azalea Path' 11x14 pastel ©Karen Margulis

Purchase this painting here $150

Every Spring I am faced with the same challenge.... How to capture the beauty of the Spring landscape successfully in my paintings. In an earlier post I discussed the challenges we have in trying to paint the Spring landscape. Read more here. Today I'd like to share some things that have helped me meet the challenge.

1. Do some advance planning. Do thumbnails to help you SIMPLIFY the busy Spring landscape.
2. Decide on a FOCAL AREA and develop it while leaving other areas with less detail. This is especially important when trying to paint flowering trees and shrubs....simplify the background by using colors in the same value so that they are soft and out of focus.
3. Try to focus in on one area of the landscape rather than trying to fit in all of the excitement into one painting. Plan on doing several paintings instead.
4. Try to zero in on one bush, flower or branch for a more intimate view of Spring.
   

'Golden Delight' 5x7 pastel

Here the focus is on the forsythia bush so I downplayed the pink blooming trees in the background by making them into soft pink shapes with no hard edges.

'Cherry Grove' 5x7 pastel

In this painting there is a grouping of cherry trees in bloom. They were all fighting for attention so I chose to emphasize just one tree. I put the most details in the center tree and downplayed the others. I also made the background trees which were very busy...into soft-edged shapes. I also used duller cooler colors to push the background into the distance.

Next I will talk about the wonderful colors of Spring. Be sure to come back for the next installment. If you haven't already, I invite you to sign up on the sidebar to receive blog updates.
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