Bison in Yellowstone National Park

November 25, 2008 – 9”x 12”, acrylic on canvas


This is the second in the series from my trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We did the grand loop in Yellowstone on my motorcycle, which mad for a long day. This image is from the north(?) west side of the loop.

I’m trying a little different technique, going for a less detailed, softer finish. In the far background are a number of felled and fire damaged trees (titanium white, raw umber and yellow ochre). I filled in the depths with stiff brush, using greens whites. There are two full pines (pthalo blue green-shade and cad yellow in multiple layers) on the right in the near ground and the bison slightly forward of them.

For the animal, I created a mahogany color for the molting fur on his back with cad red, anthraquinone blue and cad yellow (I wasted a lot of paint getting the color right.) I used raw umber, titanium white and a very slight hint of dioxazine purple for the body. I added black to that mix for the head, underbelly and legs.

The grass is a mix of cobalt blue, cad yellow and titanium white. At first it seemed too olive, but I tried it and decided I liked it.

The reflections in the stream came out awful the first time. I tried to be too detailed, which is just the opposite from the rest of the painting and the contrast was not good. The colors were even worse as I tried to create the reflective look. So I painted over 80% of it and started over, being true to the broad brush stroke style of the rest of the painting. I’m much happier with this. However, one “critic” (mom) pointed out a continuing inconsistency in the grass, so I added texture with some strong brush strokes and it looks much better.

The most valuable learning experience here is probably the effect of lightly blending grass shades together using a straight, stiff bristle brush (see the stream bank in the near lower right corner).

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