Daily Painting – Kangaroos, Nutcracker Day & A nice sky

Hi guys, so today was a little bit exciting.
It’s NUTCRACKER DAY.

And by that I naturally mean the family went to see The Queensland Ballet perform The Nutcracker at the BIG theatre — not our little local one — but QPAC in Brisbane City.

Last year we made a big adventure of it and stayed overnight in town, but this year the accommodation was going to cost us about $1200 (extortion), plus a fancy dinner (last time was $500 for the four of us), plus the $500 tickets and… phew.
A bit much.

So this time we’re skipping the overnight stay and just heading in for the performance and a less fancy dinner.

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This Morning

I spent the morning cleaning out the swimming pool and then doing a quick little painting.

Colours Used

Sky:
Ultramarine, cobalt, sienna and white.
The paint went on really thick and I’m super pleased with how the sky turned out. I’m actually getting better at painting a plain blue sky without making it look spotty.

Distant Treeline:
Yellow, blue, raw sienna, burnt umber, and a tad of phthalo green.

Hill Line:
Just cobalt blue.
(It took me a while to make the blue… you know when you keep mixing and it looks rubbish, and you’re like “why is this not working?” Yeah. I was trying to do it with ultramarine, not cobalt. Oops.)

Foreground:
A dead tree and grasses, keeping the shapes loose.

Kangaroos:
Just gesture shapes — literally focusing only on dark vs. light, not detail. I’m fairly happy considering they are TINY AS.

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Final Thoughts

I’m fairly happy with it for the time period.
Happy with my progress.
Still learning. Still making mistakes. Still lots more to fix and lots more to learn.

Anyway I’d better dash — we need to get ready and get outta here to make it to the theatre.

See you next painting!