Progress on the Sunset Painting

Today I didn't think about what I was going to tackle, I just went straight to my painting. The more I work on it the better I like it. My method has always been to block in a section and do as much as I can on that section before I move on to other sections. I do this mainly because I like to start with the background and then paint the mid-ground and foreground on top of that. For me it's easier to paint the trees over the sky instead of paint the sky behind the trees. There are always openings in the trees that show sky through them and I like to have the sky down first so I don't have to mix the sky colour and paint the openings in the branches afterward. It's just preference but I usually tweek those openings any way.

In this painting, I did the sky first and then did the water and the rocks while leaving the trees for last. I'm not sure that was wise. Last week I did notice that I liked the painting better after I had added the water and the rocks. So this week, I decided to put the trees in. What a difference that made. I really started to like the painting again.

This is where I left off last week

Above I blocked in the trees and felt the rocks were a little too light for the time of day. I also wanted to subdue parts of the sky to show where the sun was. I wanted that area of sky to be more of a focal point to draw your eye into the scene.

Here I toned down the rocks and added grasses to them, I gave the trees some better form and toned down the sky on the right side.  I also added some pinks into the water which is hard to see in these photos. Trying to distinguish the trees closer to the viewer, I made them a little lighter and more varied in colour than those further back but I can see that I will have to do a little more on that. I'm still not satisfied with the sky but I think I'm ready to take that on next time.