I’m currently working on an oil painting of Reva Reservoir near Otley, West Yorkshire. I thought I’d keep a blog for the progress of this painting so you can see how I build my paintings in stages. Others may do it differently but this is how I do it! 
After taking many photographs of the scene I made a few pencil sketches and ultimately came up with a rough acrylic sketch (Which i’ll use as the basis for the actual painting). I used Daler Rowney Cryla acrylics for this sketch..
Initial acrylic sketch of Reva Reservoir near Otley
Then I stretched the canvas, added a yellow ochre background and let that dry. Once dry I painted a very simple outline of the basic image. The outline is only a guide and i paint over it and alter the areas if needed…
Reva Reservoir - Phase 1 - Ochre background and lining out
Next I quickly underpainted the basic areas of the painting using the darkest colours (I’ll be working from dark to light)…
Reva Reservoir - Phase 2 - Underpainting
and that’s it to date. I’ll update this post the next few days once the underpainting has dried and i can do more work..
Julia
Like that wall eye perspective on the reservoir. Is this a commission or personal piece?
hiya J. Its just a painting i’m doing for fun and learning. Always a learning curve! Should have it done in a fortnight.