Hill Country Landscape Paintings - Part Two of the 'Wavy Lines Project'

Mountain Pass, 30x30 inches, acrylic on canvas

Where we left off with the Hill Country abstract paintings, I had just changed colour palettes from warm to cool.  With the arrival of this particular landscape painting, however, came a more earthy palette and loads and loads of texture.  

Until now, all of my Hill Country series paintings had been painted with a brush.  But I wanted more.  I wanted to expand the idea of what I was doing and bring in more texture by using a palette knife.  'Mountain Pass' was a huge experiment.  And I had such an amazing time painting it!

Part of why I do, what I do, is to forge new ground, to try new things.  I never know how something will turn out.  If I did, I probably wouldn't do it.  That's what I love about painting.

 

 

Here are a few close-ups to show the detail and the water element.  With knifework, all manner of combining colours is available to a painter by creating layers.  The trick is to get the colour to go where you want it to.  That takes some practise.

Overland, 18x36 inches, acrylic on canvas

Next on our journey is 'Overland'.  The dark lines that had all but disappeared in 'Mountain Pass' are back, yet the knifework continues.  Once I had some experience with this style using the palette knife, I knew where I wanted to go with it.

I kept a palette of earthtones, but balanced it with a cool blue sky.  There are no visible lines in this sky, but the knifework translates my idea very well.

Here's a close-up to show the detail.

Hill Country Harvest, 18x36 inches, acrylic on canvas

 Now with 'Hill Country Harvest' we had come full circle, but brought with it all that I'd learned from the previous two paintings.  This is how it goes, this is how I work when it comes to my creative process.

So I returned to a smoother canvas, so smooth there is almost no texture at all, a choice in design to emphasize the long, sweeping strokes I had achieved in some of the earlier Hill Country work.  Yet, now that I had some experience combining cool colours with warm colours, I took my earthtone palette and made it even warmer, so warm you'd think it was harvest time in the prairies.  Yes!  Then I gave it some cool mountains and a cool sky and we have 'Hill Country Harvest'.

Here's a close-up to show you some of the detail.

All of these paintings have sold.  To see available paintings,
please visit my Etsy shop:

sagemountainstudio.etsy.com

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