Struggling with colors on vegetation

 

Still struggling with the colors on vegetation on dunes. Most of them are actually all greens but a little orangish due to sunset light. But some parts are actually orange color by themselves. Since orange and green are complementary colors, it's difficult to mix the final colors. Some kind of illusions are probably necessary, which I don't know how. 

Instead I was working on adjusting shapes of vegetation based on values. I think I have to leave them for now and will work on refining three shapes to be more interesting next.

Last update for Seagul

 Started working on the detail shapes of the rocks. I'm almost satisfied with the bird by now. I might go back in later to add more contrast. The colors on the water are the most difficult part now, which I need to spend some more time in the foreground.

Adjusting the Bird Shape

 

Started adjusting the bird shape. Birds are always difficult to get the right shape. A small error causes a big problem "something isn't right". Especially around its head. Also easy to miss proportional errors like head vs. body.

Filling ocean

 I wanted to fill most of the ocean before defining the final rock shapes but encountered problems creating colors I wanted. The right side of the foreground ocean became olive green, which I need to fix one way or the other. But I'm not sure how to make the colors. I know I can't mix yellow, which I did and got olive green.

Shaping vegetation

 Trying to make shapes of vegetation on dunes in the foreground. Curving in the negative (sand) shapes are more effective (or require both) than refining the positive shapes for vegetation. It started popping up in the contrast.

Placing bigger shapes on dunes

 

For the "dune" painting, I'm still trying to place bigger shapes on the dunes. 

The vegitation is the most difficult to determine the shapes without painting leaves. Yet want to make it look like vegitation. And the most importantly color shift and value shift need to be painted in right way even in this early stage, because it's all about this painting.

NorCal Seagull

 I actually started this paining probably close to a month ago. Haven't touched it a while until today.

Before start defining the shape of the main subject, obviously the gull, I wanted to determine the entire atmosphere, overcast ocean scene. The background is just thin underpainting but actually capturing the gloomy day quite well.

It was more than three years ago when I took this shot on my way driving back from Monterey, CA. I don't remember the exact place but I called the gull as "NorCal Seagull" that I remember, so not on Oregon coast.