New Cow Painting

Since I finished Yakima River Valley, it's time to start a new painting in addition to Morning Shadow. It's time for another animal painting too. Last one was horses. It's a cow's turn. The original photo of these cubs were taken somewhere between Lake Stevens and Granite Falls, which I don't remember exactly. It was a hot summer day. I wanted to include summer haze in the background. So the composition is a little squarely. But that's ok, I think. 15"x19", odd size as well.

Last update for the valley painting

Now I'm in problem fixing mode. Looking through the entire canvas and identifying problems and fixing them one by one. I finally fixed the color of background forest, which was too green before. Then put some sky/ground holes in the trees. putting the final color adjustments with clear brushmarks would finish this painting.

Gradually adjusting colors and values

Circling around on canvas and adjusting colors and values at each part. Trees are more finalized and shapes in foreground are getting clearer edges. Now I need to define shadowed areas against lighted areas for bushes.

Morning Shadow

I started a new landscape piece yesterday. This is a hay field  along Teanaway Dr. near Cle Elum, WA. I didn't paint this scene on site but took a photo I liked. Especially the distinctive shaped trees and morning shadow cast on the hay field. In a distance 4-5 horses were grazing. The wheeled irrigation line was dividing the field as if it was protecting the horses. Shadows cast on the field created contrast in crisp morning in Nov. 18"x28".

Struggling with foreground bush

I spent quite some time today trying different way and colors on the foreground bush on the bottom right corner. I wanted to put eye-pulling effect on this part but so far I couldn't figure out how. Let's forget about it and move on to the other part. 

Last update for the horses

I'm somewhat satisfied with the outcome of the left horse after I spent about 1.5h tonight. Now I really need to work on the background. But I know it would rather go quickly and this would be the last update. I'm intending to finish this this weekend.

Right horse is almost done

As you can see, the right horse is almost done. I still need to adjust the color of legs but not much more I can improve. I'm going back to left horse. At the same time, I need to start thinking how to finish the background.