Mount Tremblant

This painting was done up at Mount Tremblant in the little town they built near the mountain, which seems to be modeled after disney land as everything looks kind of fake and you half expect to see mickey mouse around the corner. At any rate the Beaver Tales were good. As the picture indicates it was fall when we were up there, a nice sunny day when the leaves were really shining with reds and greens. Painting fall colours is always tricky, the temptation is to use strong reds and oranges right from the tube, but this will always look fake (ok, maybe a fake-look would have been accurate given that everything in the town looked like it came out of a tube). The truth about fall colours is that they are all based on green and brown...as a leaf looses its green pigment in the fall it reveals the reds and yellows that were always there, but were masked by the green. To mix these colours on the palette I start with a very light green and add in a bit of red and yellow. For the greener trees I start with a darker, heavier green and just touch it up with some red and yellow. Practice mixing orange and green for awhile and you will get realistic looking colours for fall paintings. 

Mount Tremblant Ugly Fall Colours, 5 x 9" cold press paper, 2008