Red Eyed Tree Frog - 3 - "Green series"

Red Eyed Tree Frog - acrylic on canvas - green series

Red Eyed Tree Frog 3 - Part 5

And so the red eye tree frog painting develops to this...

I don't think I have been defeated by green.
In fact I'm now beginning to actually think this is the best frog painting I have done so far.

For the face I used a lot of lemon yellow and blue lake. No white at all in that mix.

When the painting dried, I used white for the highlights and fixed up the eyes some more.

My wife thinks there is too much white on the face so I might have to re-green the frog a little...

Anyway, the next pic on here will be the final of this painting and then I start another one with the red leaves.

- If you want to see the sequence of paintings for this, just click on the GREEN SERIES label beneath this post.

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Red Eyed Tree Frog 3 - Part 4

Red Eyed Tree Frog  - acrylic painting process

I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED BY GREEN !!!
Today I painted:
the belly using lemon yellow, warm yellow, green and white
the arm of the frog using white, lemon yellow and blue lake
the 'hand' in the foreground with warm yellow and orange
and some work on the face.
Oh, and another 'glaze' on the background...

I'm hell-bent on making a success of this painting by actually completing it soon.


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Red Eyed Tree Frog 3 - Part 3

Red Eyed Tree Frog  - acrylic painting process

I haven't even started on the body of this tree frog yet - nevermind the red eyes...

Enjoying the painting process but not this particular painting.
It's a really big size - 1metre by 80cm to make a mess of and not easily gotten rid of (if it were a watercolour I could chop it up for bookmarks...)

I'm still thinking this tree frog looks like a cartoon rather than a painting.
Hopefully by the time I get to paint the frog's body - it will resemble a more 'realistic' look. I've spent hours on this one so far and really trying to get the leaves right.
Payne's gray was applied in various dilutions to get the shadows 'right' and define the huge leaf. I'm starting to wish I'd painted a banana leaf instead.
The face shadows were dry brushed with Payne's gray as well.

The background got another brushing of green paint and a thin layer of yellow paint to cover the ochre which I thought was looking too dull.

Any helpful suggestions anyone?


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Red Eyed Tree Frog 3 - Part 2

Red Eyed Tree Frog  - acrylic painting process

This tree frog IS proving to be a little challenge.
I've found I have to be very careful with my observations.
In this 'episode' of my painting's development I painted a few layers of light green in a water colour-type wash.
Whilst that was still wet, I brushed some viridian hue where the shadow was intended to be...
I then used blue lake to define the black bits and went to give more green into the leaf by using a mix of phthalo blue and medium yellow.
Having put a little too much blue on the tray, I used it up by layering the previous black bits and shadows. Standing back and looking at the overall pic I decided to bring some more yellow ochre to the background - using a flick or few of leftover green into the mix as well.
After that, I used a thicker wash of medium yellow to define the thick veins of the leaf.
And that's where we are up to... The red eyes of the tree frog are very tempting but I'm saving that for another time.
If I'm not back before the new year - have a great festive season...

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red eyed tree frog - painting process

Red Eyed Tree Frog 3 - Part 1

And so begins my third painting in the series, "Red Eyed Tree Frog"...

In case you're wondering, the 'cracks' are the veins of the leaves.
I've painted them in a funny mix of yellow, lemon yellow and yellow ochre.
I think this tree frog painting will be very interesting as a study in green...


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