Flip side of view

To paint the reflection of the populars against the river, I flipped the canvas upside down. But what I realized was the values of the darker part were not dark enough at the bottom of the trees. I worked on those areas and started changing colors on the hill side. Maybe I should start putting lights to decide the colors.

Started going field again

I haven't gone any field trips for a while. I felt I needed to go out again. So I did it this memorial day holiday weekend. To avoid traffic jams, I drove to Yakima last night and stayed at Motel6. Then drove east to find a spot to paint this morning.

It's between Granger and Sunnyside along Emerald-Granger Rd. Yakima River makes a sharp turn and forks there. It's inevitable that any landscape painters trespass someone's property. I set up my easel just outside of the entrance gate of a property and next to a mail box. When I just finished painting, a pickup truck pulled over at the gate and a man asked me what I was doing. Fortunately he didn't have a shot-gun but his wife in the passenger seat. She liked my painting. I apologized and left there right away.

When I was working on the trees, top part, I felt I got a way wet-in-wet would work. The key was, again, the shadows. Shadows need to be dark, which provide contrast with lighted part and make it impressive. I didn't spend enough time to finish the bottom, sagebrush, part. I ran out of patience.

I'm thinking I'll keep going Yakima Valley this summer. Last one year or so I kept going Wenatchee Valley. It's time for a change.

How to paint the hill?

I don't remember how long I didn't make any progress on this piece. About a month, or more? Actually no others are going on. Due to my possible life changing event related to my business life, un-related to art making, I couldn't spend much time on painting. And no time for field trip to paint outside on weekends. I managed myself to frame all pieces I'm plaining to show in the next show though.

Every time I saw this piece for last a month or so, I kept wondering how I should, or can, paint the hill that is providing the context to those colorful popular trees. I still haven't gotten the answer yet.