Gathering reference and starting to paint

After doing my research on Simon Stalenhag I was eager to get started with a painting inspired by his work. My aim was to make it look as 'Stalenhag' as possible and try trick the viewer into thinking it was one of his older pieces of work. I was focusing on the colours and the lighting that I had research previously and laid the image out in a way that I felt would capture the same feelings you get from a real Stalenhag piece. This typically includes and old car (preferably a Volkswagen), a faceless character and a ominous large object in the background. 

I started following the work process that I'd found of Stalenhags work (shown in previous post) so I began my image by using a photo base to paint over and adapt to how I wanted the landscape to eventually end up. I decided to use this image as it would allow for story telling because of the open space and the tree line from the right would perfectly draw the eye into a focus point that I could paint into the left side of the picture.

I firstly started by blocking the main shapes of three focal point areas. I also wanted to change the green landscape into snow to fit more with the Stalenhag theme as the majority of his painting tend to include it. I added a subtle fade to the snow. I wanted it to be subtle as I was planning on making this piece set in overcast lighting and didn't want any harsh lighting.

I then started to carve out the landscape into a direction the flowed nicely towards areas I wanted the viewers eyes to be drawn towards and started adding more tones and colours into the painting. While doing this I would be looking through Stalenhags books as reference for colour pallets.

When I got to this stage however I decided to stop. The painting wasn't finished but after a talk with my tutors we had a discussion about how it could be more beneficial to see how transferable Stalenhags method of painting is in other locations that weren't Scandinavian. The best way to do this was to go around the area I live and take photos of its landscapes like Stalenhag does.

I headed out with my camera and was lucky enough to have Overcast lighting. But to be fair it's Preston so it's that or rain. I headed out towards a group of fields and took photos while brainstorming ideas as to what could be in the paintings. I found it quite strange as I was essentially taking pictures of invisible ideas that I would then paint in later.

Here's a few of the images that I was happy enough with to consider turning into a future piece using Stalenhags method. My goal is to turn three of these images into finished paintings.