Here's the step-by-step process of my latest painting based on a digital painting I did a couple of weeks ago...
This is the digital painting that served as a starting point. Since the computer is nowhere near my painting room, I used an earlier oil painting as a reference whilst painting and only occasionally looked back at the digital picture to see if I was heading in the right direction.
A quick layout of the major shapes and undertones (shadow tones). The paint was thinned a little with turps and whisked on with a pastry brush.
Starting with the sky and working down the painting and from background to foreground, I begin working over the painting with thicker paint. I'm still focussing mainly on shadow tones though I've added a subtle highlight to the distant hills.
After all the major shadow tones have been reworked, I apply heavier layers of local colours.
Once I had the bulk of the painting "feeling" about right, I scraped out the areas where the cattle had to go using a small, dry filbert brush. Then the beasts were added using the same process - undertone, midtone, highlight. Once they were in place, I worked back over other areas, softening some detail and adjusting colours until I declared it finished.
In many ways the finished painting is quite conceptual compared to the near-literal interpretations of scenes that I usually paint. The primary focus throughout was to keep the majority of colours controlled in such a way that the "red" herefords almost glow in the evening sunlight.
Note: The photography on some of these is a bit sad. Sorry.
