- Bear Creek and South Jackson Operations - BC&SJ III Op Sessions - July 20, 2015

I gave a backdrop painting clinic at the Feb 22, 2020 Second Division-PNR meet. This is the video of that clinic. Please excuse the sound quality.

Conventional wisdom has it that model railroad backdrops should not be detailed because they draw the eye away from the trains which are supposed to be the center of attention.

I believe this isn't necessarily true. The world is a BIG place and though trains aren't small, they are dwarved by it. Our layout's world tends to not be much larger than our trains; even in N-scale. On my BC&SJ the track often occupies benchwork less than 24" in depth (or less than 174').

By detailing the backdrops, our world expands dramatically. The scenery seems much larger and this creates a more realistic world for our trains to run through.

Jim, the conductor of the Junction City turn next to the newest scenery and backdrop painting on the BC&SJ in the January op session.
The backdrop extends the layout into the distance. When running a train, the focus still remains on the train.

Observations about backdrop painting:

I use acrylic soft-body artist paints.
Acrylic paint dries very quickly.
The hardest part of backdrop painting is being willing to start!
Colors will seem different under sunlight, incandescent, fluorescent, or LED lights. Backdrop painting should be done with the same lighting under which it will be viewed.
Before starting, have a good idea of the colors that will be present in the foreground, then try to match them. When mixing a paint color for a backdrop tree near the front of the painting it's helpful to have some trees on hand to color-match.
Be careful with the size of your painted objects. Don't paint gargantuan trees if the foreground trees are small.
If your layout has shadows from its lighting, try to match the shadow intensity and direction in the painted backdrop.
The farther away a painted object is, the less saturated its colors should be. A row of hills that are supposedly miles away will be close to the atmosphere color and have muted details.
Distant objects should be smaller.
Not all of the backdrop can have perfect perspective. There will be one place where each backdrop scene looks perspectively correct. This can be mitigated by avoiding sharply defined objects. Unless you can control the view angle use indistinct clouds, not rows of sharply defined cumulus receding in the distance. Avoid buildings that face front. Perspective issues are less obvious if buildings are painted on a diagonal.
When blending a foreground road into a backdrop, sight along the road and pencil in where the road goes on the backdrop before painting it.
Practice BEFORE starting on the actual backdrop. Dick Blick, Michaels, and other arts/crafts stores often have sales on bulk packs of small canvases. Paint on them first, then when you're ready start on the actual backdrop.
It can be difficult to paint on top of still-wet paint. Using a hair-drier will speed the drying process up a lot.

There are lots of How To Paint Real Good videos on YouTube. Some are better than others. Four YouTube channels I've found useful concentrate on landscape paintings:

Chuck Black Art - Acrylic and oil painting time-lapse and tutorial videos. He has a number of "becoming a better artist" videos discussing brushes and paints.
Michael James Smith - Oil painting tutorials and time-lapse videos. Lots of stuff on painting trees, rivers, and other landscape stuff. Explanations of the brushes he uses. Although Michael uses oil paints most of the techniques also apply to acrylics.
U.V.N. Art - Acrylic painting time-lapse vides from Russian artist Viktor Yushkevich. Viktor is an incredibly talented painter.
Bob Ross - Bob is one of the best known painters. His Joy of Painting TV show episodes are still in circulation. Bob's techniques for blending sky colors and water colors and use of a pallette knife to paint mountains don't map well to acrylic painting on a model railroad backdrop, but his ability to quikly produce trees and folliage does.

Chuck, Michael, and Bob all use oil paints (Chuck also uses acrlic paints). Viktor (U.V.N) paints with acrylics.
Chuck, Michael, and Viktor tend to hand-paint lots of details (Michael often paints individual leaves on trees...). Bob Ross paints using random brush textures to simulate vegetation. I pick and choose techniques depending on what I'm painting and whether it's in the backdrop's foreground or background.

See my other backdrop painting video to see how I airbrush clouds and distant hills onto backdrops.