This 24” square piece is all that remains of a huge 4’ x 8’ background painting, originally created for my 1982 animated short film, Encounter. It was the largest painting I had ever made, but unfortunately an 8’ wide painting was just too impractical to keep! After finishing the movie, I cut it down drastically and kept only the best portion.

This piece was an imaginative landscape from my mind’s eye and not based on any real location. It was painted with acrylics directly on gesso-primed masonite. My repeating-pattern style, from that period, is evident in the trees and cloudy mist. Use of an airbrush for the clear blue sky was the perfect method for creating a flawless gradient. I then utilized a wet-in-wet technique, much like watercolor, for the stylized mist. Finally, I followed up with the airbrush to soften and accentuate the cloudiness. Overall, Misty Mountains worked out just fine as a framed artwork, and it became a wonderful artifact of the animated film for which it was initially intended.