r/HappyTrees

Here’s my latest painting. This painting and fine art prints of it are available at Mark Altrogge Studio on Etsy. Thanks for checking it out!

Been painting since 2017, learned exclusively through The Joy of Painting and just messing around. Finally got up the courage to put a few paintings in a gallery for a local art show.

This is the 7th DVD from Bobs 1 hour instructional video. It is called Times Past. Here I took a little bit of liberty to change things from the original.

First, I don’t like evidence of people in my paintings. The original had a barn/cabin thing and some fencing. I omitted those and dropped in a boulder.

Also, Bob had a bare tree on the left side. I omitted this for now. He’s hanging out with a 18 x 24 canvas where I am hanging out with an 16 x 20. I am trying to be smart about not over crowding. But as in most cases, I am sure if I had an additional 4 inches, things would be much better. Pun intended.

What I learned: if a boulder if looking good, playing with it doesn’t make it look better. I should have stopped sooner when my stone still have some flat edges and right angles. Less if more is a theme I am seeing here.

Well, hope you all like it. I’m not mad at this one. Nor disappointed.

Waterfall of Imagination 💙🌿

I love water and waterfalls. They are an endless source of inspiration for me — the movement, the sound, the energy and the feeling of freedom. This waterfall came entirely from my imagination.

Just finished this one

Finished this one last night. It is from Bobs 1 hour DVD set. A couple of things:

1. I read a post that someone put his/her titanium white on cardboard for a bit to soak up excess oil from the paint. When it came time to put snow on mountains, it would break more easily. This technique absolutely crushed it. Love it and it works. If you have trouble, try it out.
2. I purposely left ample mist area to show distance. I feel the background and foreground are my best to date. Atmospheric and “hazy”. I also feel my reflections are pretty convincing.
3. My foreground is still a sore point for me at this stage, although I may have figured out (albeit too late) what my issues with highlights may be. I think I am too cheap with how much paint I load on my brush. My first couple of bushes or tree highlights come out great and then it goes to shit real fast. I think I just don’t put enough paint in the brush. I am just trying to stretch what is on my pallet as far as I can so I don’t end up with unused paint at the end.

I will test my theory this weekend and see if my suspicions are correct.

Thanks for looking and reading. Advise and kind words are appreciated.

Painting always calms me. When I paint, it feels almost like repeating a mantra. With this painting, I became so absorbed in it that I painted the whole day and completely forgot that I was here.

In my imagination, I was there instead.

I imagined myself walking among the sakura trees, looking at the mountain and the water, surrounded by this peaceful landscape. For a while, the real world simply disappeared.

That's what painting can do to me. I don't just paint a place — sometimes I feel like I enter it.

Sakurový ráj (2024) 🌸

Tento obraz jsem namalovala v roce 2024.

Malování mě vždycky uklidňuje. Když maluji, je to pro mě skoro jako opakování mantry. U tohoto obrazu jsem se do malování ponořila natolik, že jsem malovala celý den a úplně zapomněla, že jsem tady.

Ve své představě jsem totiž byla tam.

Představovala jsem si, jak procházím mezi sakurami, dívám se na horu a vodu a jsem obklopená tou klidnou krajinou. Na chvíli skutečný svět jednoduše zmizel.

Přesně to se mnou malování někdy dělá. Nemaluji jen nějaké místo — někdy mám pocit, jako bych do něj sama vstoupila.

Feeling my inner Vermeer, thanks to the wife for sitting for me