Still Working on My Art

I am sustaining and continuing to work on the quick oil beginnings to my newest painting.  I did a quick sketch  of my dark tones to begin with getting tree lines and fields arranged.  This lined up my perspective and worked to begin to draw the eye back into my painting.  Gaining perspective in your art is one of the most important things in your design particularly in a landscape.

I had used muted greens and earth tones to sketch in the dark tones.  Next I began to work in the sky.  I did not want to have too much contrast  in color and tone.  The day that I am portraying was somewhat gray and overcast.  I was careful to mix my blue with my white toning it with ocher and senna tones.  I used my darkest color highest in the sky and defused this with lighter variations of  similar colors toward the horizon.  By doing this I was able to give a suggestion of  light clouds.

Next I worked with the ocher and senna toned with some white and green in the fields.  The furthest field was lighter than the closer fields.  You get glimpses of this through the trees.  I worked planes of these colors through the fields in the mid ground and in the fore ground I began to break up these same tones some what brighter and using my brush strokes to suggest grasses and weeds.  Writing about how I go about painting actually makes me clarify in my mind how I go about approaching my paintings. I'm trying to find time and energy to finish this painting.  The trees in the middle ground have only the darkest tones on them now.  I need to go back and add medium tones careful to retain my freedom of brush stroke.  In the foreground where the grasses are depicted I need to work a little more.  The final touches in a painting are always the hardest.  These need to be considered and added careful not to over do.