Work In Progress: Withlacoochee Flight, Update 9
After getting all the palm trees in I thought next of doing the grasses that stretch across the scene, but I was anxious to put some water in, especially in the lower left. The palm trees were taken from another photo, pasted in, and weren’t on the bank of a river or lake, so there were no reflections. I had to create them. All I did there was to very roughly mirror the trees above, taking into account moving water. I estimated how much the reflections needed to be broken up by the reflections on the right side of the original photo. I also used other photos of similar reflections as reference. The reflections were very generally indicated to get the shapes and size, then detail was gradually worked in.
The colors used were the very same ones used to do the trees and sky. For the tree trunks: ginger root (P), 50% French grey (P), and a bit of dark sepia (FC); for the foliage: chrome oxide green (FC), chromium green opaque (FC), chartreuse, limepeel (P); for the grasses: charteuse (P), limepeel (P), raw umber (FC), burnt umber (FC); and for the sky reflections: cloud blue (P) and sky blue (FC).
Since the water is not still there was no need to match the reflections to the trees exactly, just give the illusion of being the same. I did try to match up the tree trunks a little more accurately because they stood out against the dark background behind them. The foliage masses of the trees were just roughed in. I made sure of breaking up the tree trunks because the wind was creating small waves that alternately reflected the tree trunks and background. Near the bottom, where the tops of the trees ended, the sky started to be reflected by the water surface but, because of the rising and falling water surface, the reflection of trees and sky were mixed. The science behind reflections is interesting and might be a good subject for a future post. There is a lot of information out there and it’s important for the artist to have an understanding of it to portray it with some accuracy – especially in this case, where there is no photo to copy and it has to be made up.
This area is nearly complete. I’ll work my way across to get the rest of the reflections of the palm trees in, then go back to the line of grasses. I may work alternately on the grass and the water reflections below. The birds will come last.