Painting Backgropund Trees

[Bfagan]

Any ides on how to paint trees on the wall behind a line of trees.  What color or colors work best.  Are there tree stencils available.  Would stencil paint work best.   Any help would be appreciated.

Bill

[Scottl]

There are many ways of doing this, and it depends on the tree type, particularly if it is coniferous or deciduous.  I try to match the color of the trees by using craft paint like Delta or similar.  For background trees, I aim to make the color a little lighter and more toned down  by mixing in a bit of red (to desaturate green) and a tiny amount of white.  If the trees are in the distant background, mixing in a bit of blue is good, and if you can just skip the green and paint distant trees with blue mixed with orange (to desaturate) and a bit of white.  Dabbing strokes are best and try to give some variation in the tree line that decreases with distance.

[PAL_Houston]

I did mine on a masonite backdrop.  Latex sky color went on first.  Then I sketched in the land form with an earth colored latex.  After that I randomly painted on tree forms using 3 shades of green and a yellow acrylic.  I am not an artist, but the result was sufficient to gi ve the impression of forested hills. Some of the pix in my C&I Sub thread will give you a sense of what I did. The only trick to this is to pick your illumination direction, then highlight or shadow consistently with your lighter or darker shades.
You caan do this!
Best thing is just pick some paints & brushes and try it yourself!

[eja]

My wife is an artist ... she teaches, she paints and she wins awards....

But enough about her..... if you paint your own I suggest you consider one of the many suggestions I have heard her offer to people she helps.   Specifically, don't try to paint every leaf !!!   It sounds like you want background trees.   Keep the relative distance in mind.   Look at a tree in you neighbor's yard.... look at one that you can see in the next block ... look at one even further away.  Consider seriously what you actually see.

Remember you are trying to create the "impression" of a tree and not a close up !   Colour variation and lighting (where is the sun) will be more effective than attempts to capture every detail of a singular tree....

Have fun ...


eja

[peteski]

My wife is an artist ... she teaches, she paints and she wins awards....

Do you rent her out for backdrop jobs?   
You're one lucky guy (assuming that she does your backdrops).

That reminds me of the time when we got an artist to come to one of our winter work sessions at the local N-Trak club.  We chose a module and he painted a superb backdrop!  Of course the backdrop perfectly blended into the module (even the road which was going into the backdrop). It was amazing to see him at work. Sort of like watching Mr. "happy little tree" Ross on PBS.  That backdrop is still around and it still looks great!

[GimpLizard]

Check out William Bill Alexander's "Mountain Water Runoff" series on YouTube. Bill was a German painter who hosted a painting show on PBS years ago. Sadly Bill passed away in 1997.

Mountain Water Runoff, Part 1:

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Mountain Water Runoff, Part 2:

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Mountain Water Runoff, Part 3:

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Parts 2 & 3 show how to do the trees. Primarily evergreens. But some other types as well. And pretty much all of his videos have something you'll find useful.

[peteski]

That's right: Bill Alexander!  That was before Mr. Ross.  I recall watching it on PBS in the 80s.  I'm glad that it is available on Youtube (everything seems to be available on Youtube)!

[Dave Schneider]

This thread started by Chuck last week references a link to the Big Blue forum with a very nice tutorial on backdrop painting. The author shows a very simple technique using stippling brushes for painting leaves. The results look great and it looks relatively easy and IMO worth the very small inconvenience of having to register on a difference forum.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=27098.0

Best wishes, Dave

[ednadolski]

Check out William Bill Alexander's "Mountain Water Runoff" series on YouTube.

Nice, but does it scale to N?

Ed

[RAILCAT]

Wasn't there an article in N Scale Railroading on this.
If I remember rightly a tree shaped mask was used to paint the trees
onto the background.
I no longer have particular issue to refer to..