Rockland Lake State Park, Hook Mountain — my latest work, a commissioned painting and surprise gift for a fabulous couple on their One Year Wedding Anniversary.

Bonnie and Michael wanted to come up with something special to celebrate this important occasion. The couple, as it happens, were engaged while hiking on Hook Mountain, at Rockland Lake State Park.

I don’t have a car, but I do have an amazing friend, fellow artist Jeremy Penn, who dropped everything to drive me up to the park to snap some source images. I presented twelve options, cropped-to-frame, but this is the one that resonated… and so it began.

Here is the entire painting process in just over one minute… for a photographic recap of each step, please continue.

The first part of the commission process includes finding the proper headlines… after a few rounds of back-and-forth, we nailed it.

Next, it’s all about pasting them down (no, thank YOU gel medium), and, in this case, another round of gel medium mixed with cadmium orange for a deliciously warm under-painting.

Gradient. In. The. Sky. 8 shades of blue.

Beginning to paint the light on the trail… when I see a scene like this, I try to recreate in large swatches… painting the full sky before I paint the leaves to facilitate the appearance of distance.

Having been to the park, I had a good feel of the pathway and undulating surfaces… I wanted to treat everything a bit differently… experience the variations.

While I knew most of the hill would be painted out, I decided to have fun with some mark making… the purples and browns within the trail were selected to reverberate with the green-yellow leaves to come.

Without the leaves, the trees feel sad and thus not Bob Ross approved, but alas, this was just the beginning…. the painting followed a seasonal flow… winter into spring.

The opposite side of something brightly lit, in this case, the rocks, almost take on a deep blue-purple tone, so, I went with that.

Painted with a size zero brush (the entire painting), I began to stipple in the leaves, feeling Pointillist throughout the afternoon.

Five green tones in… beginning to put the highlights in context.

I believe there are a total of 8 green tones, the brightest bordering on yellow.

The final touch: darkening the text in the path, and adding shadows to the trees. Fin. Thank you Bonnie and Michael for commissioning this painting… here’s hoping the happy couple loves it. It was a sincere pleasure working with you…