Still doing too much on the water. There is something about the composition that I like on this one. I really wanted to try to paint perspective in the clouds, but the shadows aren’t flat enough at the horizon. I think on the next go round, I’ll simplify the shapes and paint them almost like boxes to try to train myself to see them as objects with density, instead of flannel board stickers with a shadow on one side. I like the effect I was able to achieve by adding very light layers of feathered washes of very light grey, gradually adding more purple and blue in with each glaze. I should maybe try to keep the color more muted at the horizon for the clouds as well. I should also have had the clouds reach all the way to the right side at the top of the composition I think, in order to really make that sense of depth hit home.

The water is a mess. I got the first pass of light ripples closer to what I want, but it felt trite – so I decided to “stir things up a bit” on the left hand corner, to give the sense of wind starting to trouble the water. I also wanted to try to paint the shadows of the clouds in the water, which proved very difficult by the time I added it, because I had made so many passes of tiny ripples in the mid ground.

I like the way the dark trees on the left are in front of the lighter trees at the horizon, it feels very much like the cloudless sky is illuminating the distant trees. I should work on that more.

I also wanted to try my hand at reflections on the water, but I couldn’t find the right color. In the end I had to just give up on the reflections because I was already making mud.

I definitely need to experiment more with water.

Oh, and I decided to stretch the paper properly this time. I have gone away from that lately because I’m lazy, but my paintings have also suffered recently because the paper buckles severely. I hate the gum tape, but it works to keep the paper much more flat while I’m working.

Anyway – I need to keep stretching for now, and work a lot on perspective. Those are my big lessons from today.