“Completed” area of sky and trees against it, along with back piece of land

It’s snowing again, rather seriously! So I’m not feeling guilty for cancelling the class!  I’ve just done the first, perhaps complete pass at the sky and trees. For the sky, I used all softer pastels: Ludwigs, Unisons, and Great American. I began with the blue violets at the top, with a darker color in the upper left. I worked down to warmer, lighter colors and a very light blue violet as well. Then I went back into the upper right and added a warmer, more turquoise color (you can see it in the box). For the distant band of trees, I used a combination of light majentas and browns and carried these colors into the branches over the sky. For the more solid, darker trees, I began with a dark grayed red violet Girault.  (Note: the trees have mainly been done with Girault, the sky with softer. It’s a matter of the available colors and the ability to get more detail.)  I mixed a little green and some warmer reddish brown into the grouping of trees in the center. There are four of them and I added a fifth to the right, which is in the picture but omitted from my original drawing.  I’ve added some warm and cool browns to the distant piece of land. This may turn out to be too bright and need toning down,  but for now, it’s fine.

Initial lay-in of sky colors

Pastels for sky (left) and trees (right)