Bringing Trees out of the Forest

As I continue my backdrop painting adventure feet by feet, I wanted to spend some time detailing the specifics of my painting process. In this post, I focus on showing how I use color and general ideas of shape and form to "bring out" individual trees from the forest, and in turn create layers of pines on a 2D surface.

Establishing the shadows is the first step in painting the foreground. This step is, in my opinion, the simplest and also most mundane as it makes use of only one color, however, it is the foundation for all of the work that is to follow. I use a very dark mix of green and first establish a general terrain and horizon line/skyline. In the below photo this step is best seen on the far left. Trees at this point are just trunks and the forest itself is a block of color. Next, I come back and add the tops of the trees. When painting the tree tops, focus on spacing and height variation. These two features start to create depth (tree height decreases with distance) and also allows a few trees to do the work to give the impression of many more.

Photo 1: Base color added with preliminary forest development.

Step two begins the process of working in lighter and lighter colors. For this I use a slightly lighter mix of green, burn umber, and blue. Here I am simply working in secondary shadows. It is important to keep the darkest shadow color in some places, but this is where I start to develop some indication of shape. Not much is stressed here in terms of where this color goes, however as we keep layering, these colors will give the forest some very nice depth.

Photo 2: Secondary shadows applied. 

The fun begins as we keep working lighter and lighter with our greens. In this thirst layer of paint, I really start to work with tree shape and form. I start to paint indications of where branches would be and this starts to separate individual trees from the forest. Note that light is coming from the right, so even though this step in fairly even in terms of color distribution, I start to favor the right side to given the impression that more light is coming from that direction. 

Photo 3: Individuals are pulled from the crowd simply using shape and color. 

The process continues for me like this with numerous layers of lighter greens until I have reached a point I am satisfied with. In the below photo I have developed this small stretch of forest further, but am not completely satisfied with it entirely. I still have to add the closest brush grasses, and small trees which will help ease the transition with the modeled layout. 

Near completed foreground forest. 

I hope this technique overview will help in some ways your next backdrop painting adventure. As I continue to paint, learn, and refine I will update accordingly. Each time I paint I find different ways to bring to life the Cascades with paints and brushes. As always happy modeling!