Colorado Sunshine, 20 x 24, Rives BFK with gel

Black and white photo used for reference

Today I worked more on this painting that I shared an early version with 2 posts ago. It was almost done and I worked on it at home with some natural light coming in. I thought I’d include the black and white photo as well.  This painting has definitely been more of a struggle than the first two and I’m sitll not sure that it is done.  I didn’t really plan to paint it and then I did it over a period of a week or two. I’m glad that I did it, however. It makes a nice trio with Colorado Morning and Band of Trees. As to challenges: the large mass of trees was the first challenge. I wasn’t sure that I liked the shape, but I didn’t know what to do with it so I basically left it as it was.  Then there was the light in the sky at left where the sun is. I went back and forth with whiter and yellower yellows until I was happy. The backlit trees were a challenge as well. I tried to give them the sense of being in bright light. I used a variety of blue greens, greens, and browns on them. Then today I added a beautiful red violet (I think it’s “Iris” from Great American) in several values and I was really happy!  The red violet really sings against the yellow greens  and earth tones.  Overall the values are darker than those in the photo, I think and I fear that the surface is getting overworked.  So I’m not sure whether to work further on it or not. What do you think???