This is the second attempt at the photo Rick sent. I knew I wanted to be careful about getting too dark too quickly, I was going to have to plan on a number of glazes for this to work. 

As I glazed, I realized that having used non- staining pigment (Bloodstone Genuine) on the second glaze was a bad idea because it freed up with subsequent layers. In one spot, where I accidentally used too much water, the Bloodstone lifted almost entirely away.

I actually liked the effect this caused, the Bloodstone collected at the edges, and toned paper was exposed beneath. I decided to experiment with intentionally lifting pigment to create some shapes that I saw in the photo, and then added cools and warms on the lifted areas to increase the depth of hues in the painting.

I liked how this worked, but it still felt very soft all around. One of the detriments if lifting pigment like this is it feathers all the detail in the middle of the areas where I lifted pigment. So after going in with cools and warms, I still needed to come back for some final detail glazed to bring out the textures I wanted to communicate.

I tried using a fan brush to get the feathery leaves on the trees, but it did not provide the effect I was after. Instead, I went with a 000 brush, and added the lines one by one. This produced some very interesting moments in the painting where there was a haphazard blotch of pigments loosely alluding to light and shadow, then a few very deliberate brush strokes were laid on top, and it gave a pretty unique sense of depth to the painting.

I continued to explore this throughout the painting, lifting pigment, glazing details, blotching in splashes of color until I felt I had the values where I wanted them.

I’m not entirely pleased with it, because the areas of lifted pigment read a little bit like mistakes – but there is something about this that I like.