I haven't finished my aspen painting yet but it's getting closer. Here's the update:
I worked the leaves over and over and over. Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Orange, purple, blue, green and tan...scrubbed in and filled in with a 1/2 inch brush. This is probably layer #2 of 100.
Next, I added lower foliage and detailed the trunks. How about some boulders? Yeah, I like that.
Now, for the uncharted territory - adding the distant teepees. How big to make them??? I cut different sizes out of paper and taped them up to see which size I liked. It was hard because there wasn't anything around them.....and I panicked after I'd put them in. They looked lonely out there in the middle ground all by themselves. Meanwhile, I've soften the foreground tree leaves and feel pretty good about them.
Wow, this camera on my phone make those colors look bright. It's not that wild in real life.
The teepees need some trees and shrubbery around them to make them feel at home. This is nerve-wracking because it's going to be reeeeaal hard to paint this out if I hate it.
Which I do.
Something about those distant trees is bugging me. I think they take up too much of my open space and look too posed....so I may need to paint some of them out. Sigh. The foreground trees are really my focal point so I need to remember that the middle area is part of the supporting cast. It keeps wanting to steal the show and I must beat it back.
I ran out of good natural light to keep going to I put my brushes down and will come back to it after a good night's sleep.
The next thing to tackle will be the foreground in the lower left corner, and the stream. I just don't know how much detail to add and I don't want to overdo it - which is what I'm afraid I've done with the dern teepees and trees. Grrr.
The phone photos are not great, sorry about that. It takes too long to upload camera photos - I'm too impatient.
Hopefully by Monday I will have this done and will move on to the the collage piece. If you hear screaming coming from the Dallas area, that would be ME, giving up on this painting!!
I hope your week has been productive! I'm still hosting Company Girl Coffee if you'd like to link up.... simply enter your blog *post* URL into the linkytool here on my blog. Have a great weekend, everyone!
