2D Background - Drawings Trees in Edgar Payne's Style

As research for my 2D background, I did some studies of trees and foliage in Edgar Payne's style. I am creating my final background in his style, so I wanted to do some studies so I knew how to recreate his style. I did these studies on Photoshop as I am using the same program for my final background.

My first study is of a photo I took of the campus in the snow. I chose this image because it has a lot of foliage, and depth. I wanted to practice how to create depth in Payne's style, as I am making a foreground, mid ground and background in my final piece. Initially, I wasn't sure how to create this study because Payne's landscapes don't include any snow. However, he does use a lot of blue and purple tones, so I took this on when doing this study. I started off by painting the sky, which I made very light so I could have the foreground darker as a contrast. I then sketched out the scene with one tone to work out the darker and key elements. To get the colour palette, I brought in a few of Payne's paintings into Photoshop and used the eyedropper tool to select the same tones he used. This made it a lot easier to create an overall atmosphere, as I struggle with choosing colours that are too bright. I applied some warm tones to the foliage to balance out the piece, however, I didn't use many warm tones as it is a snowy scene.

Study 1

Reference Photo

My second study is also of a photo I took in the snow. This image has quite a lot of depth, which Payne uses a lot in his pieces. I didn't draw the whole piece as I wanted to focus on the tree and foliage. Like my first study, I started by painting the sky and then roughed out the main objects, such as the tree in the foreground. I also some used colours as a base, such as yellow and blue behind the trees. For the background trees I used a lot of blue and purple. Again, I struggled with how to draw the snow in Payne's style. I tackled this by created a bade with the colours from Payne's paintings, and then using lighter versions of these tones for the snow. I also added some pink in some areas to balance the blue. After creating the the background trees, I painted the foreground trees with much darker tones so it would stand out. Additionally, I used a lot of green tones in the foreground for the same reason. To make the tree appear to have snow on it, but to not make it blend with the background, I used a darker purple.

Study 2

Reference Photo

My third study is of a photo I took at the Eden Project, which includes a lot of warm colours. I used Payne's piece 'Eucalyptus' as a reference for the colours, as it uses a lot of yellows, oranges, and bright greens. For the sky, I added some blue to balance out the warm colours. In 'Eucalyptus' Payne doesn't do this, but he does use a light blue as a base tone for the whole canvas, so I added the blue in the windows/sky and the waterfall. There is a lot of foliage in the reference photo, so I approached it with Payne's block colour technique. I also used more than one layer so I could some detail in areas such as the grass in the foreground, and the lighter tree in the top left corner. In my previous studies, I used pops of warm colours, such as pink, to balance out the amount of blue. In this piece I added some small blocks of dark blue to balance out the yellows and olive greens. Additionally, I coloured the rocks at the front in reference to the tree trunks in Payne's piece, which uses warmer browns. I struggled with the waterfall, as I wanted to make it look like water whilst making it not too detailed. I'm not completely happy with the end result, but I'm pleased with how I achieved the warm colour palette and the block brushstroke style.

Study 3

Reference Photo

For the forth study I wanted to try paint something a little different. I chose a photo I took at night on a vintage camera app, which edits the contrast and blur automatically. I chose this image because of the light hitting the leaves, and how it contrasts the dark in the rest of the photo. I was originally going to draw just the tree, however it looked a bit odd without a sky and the lamp as there was no light source and the atmosphere changed completely. I first blocked out the main trees, and painted the dark colours. I picked out the tones from many of Payne's paintings, as I couldn't find a piece where he showed this much contrast in his colours. Like in most of Payne's pieces, I used a lot of blue to show shadows and the darker areas. This works really well with the contrast of the orange and yellow tones. I also added some olive green to areas where the light hit the leaves, but I didn't want to overkill on the amount of orange. It was hard to not make the big tree look like a mound of leaves, but I added some small blocks of the same colours as the sky to make it look like there are holes where leaves are covering the tree. I am really happy with the lighting and style of this study.

Study 4

Reference Photo

For my final study, I wanted to paint something more challenging. I chose this photo I took at the Eden Project, which includes a lot of vibrant colours. Again, I painted the sky first and I used blues and greys like in most of Edgar Payne's pieces. Furthermore, the rest of the piece uses mostly warm colours so I balanced it out with the sky. I then roughed out the bigger rocks in their colours. I did these all on separate layers in case I needed to have some the rocks overlap later in the painting process. I also roughed out some of the plants with greens. I kept the darker greens near the back, and lighter greens in the centre and to the front of the piece to create depth. There were a few bright plants, so I used the oranges and yellows from Payne's piece 'Eucalyptus' to block them out. I had problems with the cacti, as they didn't really resemble cacti unless I added detail. I was trying to avoid too much detail to be true to Payne's style, however I had to use a bit on the cacti and the foreground plants. However, I think the detail on the foreground plants is a bit too much, and it distracts the viewer from the overall atmosphere of the piece.

Study 5

Reference Photo