Calm morning at Sparks Lake Oregon

Great realism Aaron! Gorgeous!

Beautiful painting.

Fantastic, very inspiring!

It's gorgeous. Lovely contrast between the misty distant mountain and sky, against the sharp glassy clarity in the water.

Fanatic!

Wow. Love everything about it.

Easy on the eye and really calm. Love it.

Fantastic! Love the color palette. So much distance created with the faded background mountains. Excellent water reflections.

Thank you all very much :) I REALLY appreciate it. I originally wasnt super sure I thought it was good enough to post. But that's the funny thing about your own Art is'nt it?

Once you just show others, once its out there, you can finally take a step back and enjoy what you made.

Thank you all.

Beautiful painting and especially the sky from blue to yellow is so well done!

Absolutely gorgeous!

Loving it!
Very calm indeed.
Colours are great.

Out of interest: Did you use a photograph for reference?

Thank you so much for your kind words.

The sky and water took me about an hour. I really wanted to get it right .

I did use a Photo for reference. I know Bob wasn’t big on using anything other than his imagination. But, I find that using a Photo is a great way for me to be accurate. Also, when I’m not feeling creative, but I just want to paint, it’s a good way to still spend my painting time wisely.

It’s beautiful

Wow!! Amazing work!!

I'm really enjoying your style! I hope to achieve something like this some day!

Wow, thank you so much to everyone who's liked this Painting enough to comment on it.

@JeffTh Thank you very very much for that compliment. I really recommend using a Photo as a reference. My earlier work had nothing as a reference other than watching Bob and trying to follow along. Once I got a bit of a hang of my brushes and the idea behind what each brush did and the order of what to paint, I began to use Photos.

So, with this one... I began with the sky, and I finished it 100% along with a good chunk of the same Blue and Yellow/Orange in the water. Once I did that, I actually drew on my canvas with a Mechanical Pencil where the mountains would go, and a basic water line. Then I'd paint those in. Then I had a really good idea of the foreground, but I still used a pencil to get some of the dimensions right. Then I just painted over them.

I found that if I drew on my canvas on top of the base White, when I put in my sky it would smush the pencil into the sky and water and it didnt look good. That's why I began to pencil in the Mountains once the Sky was 100% done...

I hope this helps you a bit :)

Just gorgeous.

thanks for the tip Aaron. I find that when I use a photo reference I really struggle with color matching and knowing when to drop/push detail. Are you going to great lengths to match exact color, mixing piles of paint before starting? Or are you brush-mixing and blending into colors you have painted already? Another question, I've noticed a lot of your canvases are a similar size, do your photo references match that aspect ratio?

You definitely don't give yourself enough credit, as from where I'm standing you are a natural at many aspects of this process! Thanks for letting me bombard you with questions.

p.s. what is your method for rocks under the water?! acrylic underpainting? cheers!

@Jeffth No Problem. When it comes to Color matching, I spend a lot of time on each new color. Probably enough time to make most people just say 'to heck with it, this is good enough'. But, I like to be as close as I can. I don't brush mix unless I'm just slightly changing a color I already have made.

With the Sizes, each size of canvas is just a Ratio. My usual 10x20 is a 2:1..... 16x20 is a 4:5.
So when I find a picture I like and want to try to paint, I usually change the picture's ratio to match the Canvas I have.

I appreciate your kind words, but Im still a work in progress.

The Rocks under the water are just a very soft Grey. I took a little grey from the mountains, and made it very similar to the water. Then I put them in with a small 0/2 round brush. I have no idea what Underpainting is. All my pieces are all done at once. I've never gone back the next day to go over top of something I did the day before.

I hope this helps a bit :)

Also, I enjoy the questions. Im not a professional, but I kind of have my own style now.

thanks for the thorough response! This gives me a little more confidence to try painting from a photo again. I need to tweak my painting setup so I can see and work from photos better. I find it hard to match color against a laptop screen, any tips for that? I'll end the interrogation here haha.

@Jeffth Hey. Not a problem. I use my computer screen to display my picture as well. I find that making sure the lighting in the room is right. If its too bright you cany really get a good feel for the color your mixing, and the same is true if its too dark.

Also, if you just cant put your finger on what a color is... use the Color dropper tool in a program like 'Paint 3D' on Windows. Once in a while I use that tool to know if its a really dark blue, and it turns out to be a really dark green or dark red.