d) Green space in the background
In the next step I paint with oil colours the areas green in which leaves will be painted later. The leaves, which will be in the foreground, will get sharp contours. In the background further leaves should be vaguely perceptible. These leaves don't have to be painted accurately or even should be blurred.
I'm mixing several greens hues on the canvas together, to get a little bit structure into the background. You can allways be a little bit experimenting. A few white blobs that I'm painting in the picture are reflections of light. To paint the blurred background objectsis sometimes not as easy as it seems. Soft margins can be painted quite good by sweeping over the painted edge again with a synthetic brush when the color is allready a little bit dried. Simply try it yourself. With a big synthetic brush you can create smooth color gradients.
I'm allready painting some leaves in the picture, because I just feel like it :-). But too many details are still not appropriate as a lot of it will be overpainted later anyway (with leaves, branches and all other objects in the foreground).
Looks quiet more cheerful and you see how easy it is to paint with oil colours ;-)
5th More details and structures
The nearer we are comming to the foreground the more details will be painted into the picture. Now I have structured the green background more and added more reflections. The oil paints can be painted opaque but also transparent. In addition, I'm drawing some background leaves, which - as mentioned above - don't have to be painted to exactly, as they will hardly be noticeable in the finished picture.
Unfortunately, I have already forgotten to paint the space between the legs of the chameleon green. But I can do that still in one of the next steps - with the oil paints not a problem.
f) Foreground
Now,the first objects in the foreground get on the canvas. I will start with a few leaves and a first branch. It is important to paint the objects first, which lie further to the rear. If you work this way you can always overpaint these objects and you don't have to paint laborious along any edges.
If you take a close look at the painting, you might recognize perhaps, that I made this mistake already. I forgot to paint a branch, which lies further in the background. That is not so terribly bad, but it cost my a little bit mor effort in the later course.
In the pictures below you see the leaves enlarged, that I have painted newly. I have used for them a brighter green oil colour and a darker green oil paint. The branch on which some caterpillars will be crawling later, is still not finished. He lacks of a little bit contrast. Therefore I will paint the shadow on the bottom side a bit darker.
To be continued...
