Acrylic Painting Step by Step

Using Multiple References

When searching for the perfect subject to paint, don’t feel as though you need to restrict yourself to copying a single source. Not only can you use artistic license to alter a scene—changing colors or subtracting unwanted elements—you can also combine elements of various references, merging multiple photos to enhance your “found” compositions. For the painting below, I taped together sections of two different photographs, each bearing aspects that I wanted to include in my landscape. Although the scene looks very realistic, it doesn’t actually exist!

Color Palette

brilliant blue, bronze yellow, burnt sienna, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, cadmium yellow light, chromium oxide green, dioxazine purple, light blue-violet, ...