Oil Painting - Cherry Blossom Reflections

You may have seen a recent Travelfeed post of mine that provided a photo tour of the 2022 National Cherry Blossom Festival. Here is an oil painting inspired by one of those photos.

Cherry Blossom Reflections

Oil on Linen Panel
8”x10”

Progress Photos

Block-in Big Shapes

My first step in any painting is blocking in the big shapes with colors that serve as the underpainting. I usually end up with several layers of paint on top of the block-in colors.

Putting in details

My second step is to start putting in a layer of more detailed shapes, putting in some of the lightest values to see how they contrast with the darks.

Separating the distant trees

At this point I thought there wasn’t enough separation between the distant trees so added a layer of different values of purplish pink to help make each tree more distinct.

The main difference between the above version and the final version was going back in and adding darker flowers for parts of the foreground tree on the left to pull it closer. I also darkened the branches of that foreground tree to help separate it from the distant trees and pull it forward. I also darkened the blue in the sky so that the lighter side of the monument would stand out with more contrast against the sky.

Reference Photo with Drawing Grid

I use a grid to break down the reference photo into smaller segments. I find this is very helpful in ensuring an accurate drawing. As you can see, I don’t follow the reference photo exactly.

I hope you like my painting and seeing how I put it together.