Stuart Range from S Cle Elum

Last evening I came over the pass and stayed at Cle Elum then painted Stuart Range viewed from South of S. Cle Elum. Sky, the mountains and the forest hill are almost what I intended. The forground pastures and low trees probably needed more attentions and practices before I can make a master plein air piece. But, overall, I'm quite satisfied.

Last update for this horse

I'm finishing up this piece. Roughly and randamly filled the background. then put more needles on the pine tree. I could have made it much darker as in the reference photo. But decided not to push it further because it's out of focus and I don't want it getting more attentions by viewers.
I'll make the horse's lighted side a little lighter and try enhancing colors on the face before putting my brush down.

Filling more background

while still refining the face of the horse, I started filling more background. Then realized I needed to add more value contrast on the horse sice it's muck closer and focused. At this moment it looks very flat.
I'll try finish this this month.

Glacier Peak Wilderness Hiking

Today I hiked up toward Round Lake from North Fork Sauk River just off of Mt. Loop Hwy near Darrington. I woke up late and made a mistake to cook breadfast at home before taking off. So when I started assending it was already past 11. Besides my legs still had fatigue from jogging yesterday. So I had lunch well below Bigley Gap (elev. 4,400ft) causing that I couldn't reach the gap of Lost Creek Ridge to look down Round Lake before 2:30 when I decided to turn around and start decending.
However, I didn't miss shooting photos of Sloan Peak(above image) and other mountains on the way up. I promised to myself I'd come back again and at least see the lake. It might be next year though.

Started Filling Background

I felt that I need to fill the background to establish the context. otherwise I don't know what part of the horse need to be highlighted, and so on. I knew I can't paint each pine needle, I tried a long handled wide soft brush to put them in. I'm almost sure I need to over paint again to have proper colors behind the needles.

Another N Cascade Mountain Painting

It's still hard to make out of at this level of sketching, but I just srated another N. Casade painting out of a last year's vacation photo. It's just south view from the same ridge I saw Mount Logan in west. Fisher Peak is in the middle.

This one has more clouds than Mt. Logan so the colors of greens are much darker and muted.