Kirkjufell Mountain of Iceland Painting Tutorial

Hello dear Steemians! Today I am going to share a step by step tutorial of an oil pastel painting I did today. It is a painting of the Kirkjufell Mountain of Iceland. The mountain is in a unique shape that looks like the hat of a witch. I came across a picture of it on Pinterest and thought that it looks really beautiful. I decided to paint it. The reason why I chose oil pastels is because I have a large collection of oil pastels lots of colours I can choose from. I can save some time as I don't need to mix most of the colours like I would need to do with my limited water colours.

Tools and Materials

• An artblock
• Buncho oil pastels
• A mechanical pencil with 2B lead
• Tissue to clean fingers after smudging
• A ruler to scrape in case you make mistakes
  
  

Step by Step Tutorial

First of all, I drew my artwork using a mechanical pencil with a 2B lead so that it will be easier for me to paint later on.

I wanted to paint by sections. I started with the right part of the sky. I wanted the right area to look warm with the sun positioned there. So, I used a few warm colours such as yellow, orange, red and mustard to create the effect that I wanted. I smudged them a little to blend them and avoid white spots and then colour over the smudged area again. I also added some yellow on the mountain to show the bright sun ray falling on it.

Then, I focused on the left side. I added more cool colours on this area. I added white first on the areas I wanted to protect to keep them light. Then I added the other colours such as blue and purple. I also used a touch of yellow and oranges. On the right side, I tried to create the orange blue sky effect that we can usually see right after sunrise.

I painted the mountains in distant in multiple colours ranging from dark pink to purple.

Then, I moved on to paint the waterfalls and the streams of water. I didn't have the blue I wanted. So, I created it by mixing a dab of dark blue with some green. In oil pastels, we need to smudge them well in order to blend and create new colours. White can also be used but sometimes it can dull the colours. By the way, I didn't stick to the blues. I added some orange and yellow too to create the reflection of the sun on the running stream of water.

I added some ripple effects to the water. I went back and forth with white and some blues. I also painted some stones on the water and the mountain in various shades of green. I added two little cottages in distance.

I coloured the stones and the last part of the ground near the mountain. I also added some outlines at the edges of the water to create a depth effect. I made some changes in the shape of the large mountain as well.

I painted the rest of the artwork which is a hilly area in different shades of green. I added some red flowers as well

I added some touch ups on the mountain. I also added more ripples and waves on the water. Although I added some blue on the falls, I left most of it white. In real, the white colour is due to millions of little water bubbles caused by evaporating dissolved oxygen. This is the end result of my painting. Thank you for reading my post and I hope that you like it. Have a great weekend =)