It took nearly two days, but I came close to finishing the background today. I think I’ll add another plant in the foreground later, and perhaps pencil in some added details, but otherwise it’s done.
I started yesterday with masking the image. Then I airbrushed the top portion with a light blue acrylic, followed by a tan in the lower half. Then I filled the mid-section with a moss green, completing the base of the background. From there I started painting acrylics with a brush, starting with a darker moss green, stippling the idea of leaves from the top to nearly the bottom. I varied the brushes to get a greater variety of textures and sizes, and also altered the green acrylic from brownish to bright green. Once that was filled up, I airbrushed again, this time using a light gray-green on the top half or so of the foliage, sending it further back in the distance. Next, I returned to stippling, this time with more vibrant greens, and only at the bottom of the foliage area.
With the background jungle complete, I started painting the tree. I started with a broad wash of gray-tan acrylic. I then built up the color and texture with various browns, tans, yellows, and gray. With the lightest gray-brown I painted in the vines, followed by a dark brown for their shadows. For the ground, I staggered brush ‘hits’ with various browns, building up the terrain. Finally, I painted in the foreground foliage with greens and yellows ( and a touch of white).
It was nice to remove the masking at last, seeing the outline once again of the model, which had been lost with all the paint work I had done on top of the masking…