Hope's Art Journey

I feel good about the progress here.  The back trees can be more defined by "cutting in" with the sky color.  As I painted the back marsh area, I found I needed to mix some sky color to define the area on the left.  My next dilemma is to work the pattern of the large area of marsh leading into the painting.  As I work on it, I realize that I am trying to paint too much detail and need to simplify it into a pleasing pattern.  Also, it is so orange and red that I am sure it needs more green.  This picture was taken on March 19.  Here is the picture I took today:

I think you can see my frustration with the marsh in the front.  I definitely have painted too many strokes of grass.  I decided it was time to paint the sky and water to help me define the shape of the back trees and the front marsh.  The tone of the sky will help me choose my colors for the marsh I think.  I knew I needed to add to the sky color I had already mixed so I jumped in.  Fearful that I would not have enough paint and would have to remix trying to match the color perfectly, I mixed way too much.  Of course I did what I tell students not to do.  I added too much yellow - it only needed a dab - and then had to add lots of blue and white.  I have a whole jar of it now since I made it too dark and ended up using a whole tube of white (not the big one).  I'll have enough blue to do the next painting but I have all idea I'll need to buy more white.  I still think it may be too dark.  I was trying to match the sky in the painting the hospital chose for me to pattern these colors.

I will blend more blue into the clouds.  They look like waves at this point.  I did add some Flow Release to the paint to help me blend it in.  And, I have researched more photos of marshes to solve the problems in the front marsh.  I'll go back to that after I paint the water.  The back trees look pretty good but they will need some retouching as I lost some of the shapes in the palm fronds.

I was going to make two blog posts out of these photos but I am proceeding faster than expected and plan for the next post to be the finished painting.  Standing up does make things go faster.  Also, the very large acrylic bushes help.