1. Choose a support. As we’re using acrylic, you could choose canvas, canvas board or a wooden panel. Acrylic or watercolour paper is not a good choice, as it will be too flexible to support heavy texture.

2. Any acrylic type will work for this painting – heavy body, soft body or acrylic gouache. If possible, choose opaque colours rather than transparent. The colours you choose will depend on your plant species. I used titanium white, unbleached titanium, primary yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, primary blue and quinacridone red.

3. Dilute titanium white, yellow ochre and primary blue (or your own equivalents) with airbrush medium to give a runny consistency. Liberally paint the medium over the support. While the medium is still wet, paint the colours freely over the support to give a washy effect. Tilt the support in different directions to encourage the colours to run and blend.

1. Make sure the line where the sky and grasses meet is jagged and uneven. A diagonal line where the two colours meet will look more pleasing than a horizontal one.

2. If you don’t have airbrush medium, you could achieve a similar effect by diluting the paint with flow enhancer, or just paint a loose background of blue that merges into yellow or green.

1. To give depth to the painting, we’ll start with soft, muted colours. I used mixes of primary blue, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and titanium white. We want to paint the grasses loosely and randomly with different shapes, colours and heights. I find this is easiest to do with a swordliner brush, as it is designed to create lines that vary from fine to thick in a single brushstroke.

2. Continue to paint a range of grasses, using stronger colours for foreground foliage. Foreground plants need to be rendered more accurately, so refer back to your reference material regularly. To prevent the grassy area from looking too solid, try to preserve any areas of sky in the lower half of the painting.

1. Now comes the fun part of adding texture. Mix each colour with a texture paste to add bulk to the paint. A paste will be better than a gel, due to the matt finish. I chose flexible modelling paste, which is more suited to a flexible canvas surface.

2. Now apply the colours with a variety of tools and methods – different shaped painting knives, cocktail sticks and skewers – to create an impression of the plant shapes.

3. You may find that your palette knife gives a shape reminiscent of a leaf or grass. Experiment with different mark-making possibilities to see what effects you can create.

4. Try scratching into the wet paint with a cocktail stick. This can be effective for leaf veins and grass heads.

5. As you apply the paste, you may find that some edges are broken or uneven. Plants grow unevenly, or get damaged or nibbled by wildlife, so that just adds to the effect. Try to avoid repeated, perfect generic leaf shapes.

6. Show parts of flowers or stems that disappear in places. This is known as lost and found. It implies that some parts of the foliage will be hidden in the general tangle of plants.

1. Once the paste is dry, add tone and details, such as leaf veins or fine plant stems. As the paste will have created flat colour, you can now create more interest by overpainting to show variation of colour.

2. Dry brushing with a contrasting colour will emphasise areas of texture. The close-up (below) shows how a dry-brushed, textured area gives the impression of a flower head, without having to paint every tiny petal laboriously.

Ask yourself what the painting needs as your work progresses. I felt that mine required more plants and texture. To achieve a new texture, I added marble dust mixed with gloss medium and dull green acrylic paint, and dabbed the resulting paste onto the canvas in wavy lines. Any medium that gives a granular effect would work instead of marble dust. When dry, I dry brushed to emphasise the texture.

Close-up to show textures

The finished painting

Summer Meadow, acrylic on canvas, (30x30cm)

Check your painting for any final adjustments that may be needed.

I added more variety of colour to the clovers, and a few tweaks to modify areas that I wasn't pleased with. You could paint suitable butterflies to give added interest to the image, or leave it as a celebration of plants. If you find the surface is too textured to add a detailed butterfly, gently remove the ridges with a craft knife or sandpaper.

If you enjoyed painting this wildflower meadow

CLICK HERE TO PAINT ANOTHER ONE WITH CAROLE ROBSON

Jackie Garner

Find out more about this Gloucestershire-based wildlife artist and her work by visiting www.jackiegarner.co.uk or email [email protected]. Read Jackie’s blog at garnerwildlifeart.wordpress.com

SEE MORE DEMONSTRATIONS BY JACKIE

This demonstrations is taken from the August 2020 issue of Leisure Painter. Enjoy endless inspiration with access to past and present issues of both The Artist and Leisure Painter magazines, plus exclusive video demos, tutorials and more, with our Studio Membership! Discover how you can join today.  

Sometimes we may include links to online retailers, from which we might receive a commission if you make a purchase. Affiliate links do not influence editorial coverage and will only be used when covering relevant products.