Have been out of town quite a bit the past few weeks, but in between trips I’ve worked on this little painting. Had some perspective issues for a while but i think they are now ok. One question i had was how to paint the mountains in the background. In many photos/paintings , when you see mountains in the background they are really far away, as in really background. I painted and repainted these mountains until i decided there was no reason to move them far into the distance, as in real life, as in when i was on this trail, those mountains were actually quite close. So i moved them back to their original placement. In one phase of this work i used palette knife, which looked fine, but it didn’t match very well with the rest of the scene. So i painted over those spots. Also had to do some work on the green hills in the middle distance. Changed the value and color of the trail a few times. I think it’s now pretty ok.

The reference photo for this painting was just a quick iPhone shot along a trail near our home where we were hiking a few weeks ago. As usual, i was taken with the big rock. When it came to start painting, however, that particular rock had to go — otherwise it would have overshadowed anything else in the painting. So i altered it a good bit and then added more rocks, both on the right and on the left. I added the flowers for variety (some break from the greens) and perspective. Among the issues that remain to be addressed are: the path/trail needs to be muted in color and value, i think; the grasses need at least one more layer of paint; the sky still needs some work. Anyhow, here’s the progress to date.