Surprisingly quickly getting closer to finish

Even though I didn't much time on this, it's surprisingly quickly getting to the final stage. I still couldn't decide how cool the shadow white part needs to be, and the mid to foreground pasture is a little too light value-wise. Otherwise I don't think I can improve this much more. Likely one more update then finish this piece.

Again, the composition was the key from the beginning.

Mid-range is getting closer to the final values

 

I mixed a batch of  purplish gray at the beginning. From there I gradually lightened and warmed up the gray by mixing more red and orange, then applied it to the mid-range. Now the values are about what I want them to be.

Adjusting Shapes on Cows

I moved front legs of the left cow forward to show movement. At the same time, started shaping the face of the right cow. They're almost good. Also putting more texture in the background pasture. And gradually working toward the foreground.

Sky and Foreground values are about right

As I wrote last time for this painting, I adjusted values of sky and foreground. They seem to be about right. Now I need to work on a band of midground hazy shadowy area. My strategy would be mixing lots of purplish gray and shifting values a little darker and lighter from the mixed gray. I need to do it all at once.

Teanaway Valley

Yesterday afternoon, I made a decision to stay at Cle Elum and paint in Teanaway Valley this morning. Mainly because I couldn't find a good spot to paint in early morning around Everett. When I rode on to Teanaway Rd from SR-970, I immediately knew I could paint anywhere along the load. I've chosen this area because Ned Mueller send out email with beautiful photos about a month ago. The mountain is Earl Peak, which Ned also painted from the same angle but a little further away. In his painting the peak was completely covered by snow. Now I only could see some patches.

In the middle of two hour session, a bunch of cows were rushing toward me. Later I figured a big cube of salt was placed only a couple of dozen yards away  from the spot I was painting. They came to lick it, which I quickly put in the canvas. The mountains became a little too red and I should have make the trees darker. But overall it's not too bad. I need keep trying.

Changing the direction

Based on what I experienced and leaned in Jim Lamb's workshop over the weekend, I decided changing the way I paint. More specifically the process especially at earlier stages. On the way back from Bainbridge on Sat, I stopped by a hardware shop in Poulsbo to get two cheep (less than a dollar each) house painting brushes (1/2" and 1-1/2"). I used those tonight to fill up each mass shapes in the background other than cows with much closer values to the final ones. Determining the values on the field is tough because the color/value of grass is quite different from the grounds. So I still couldn't determine the value of the long shadow strips cast on the ground.
 But the color/value of trees in background as well as sky's are almost final ones.

This process change would affect not only to the process itself but would also affect to the final outcome. I'm almost sure. I'm going to try the same way on the cows next. 

Jim Lamb Plein Air Workshop - Day 3, Last Day

Today was perfect for painting weather-wise. We met at Fay Bainbridge State-park and reduced our cars down to three (plus my motorcycle) and visited the host's house on sand bar next to the park. It was very narrow strip of land but absolutely beautiful.

The photo on the left was today's outcome. Not as impressive as last two days. I had problems with defining colors for both foreground and background trees. Besides, I wanted to paint Olympic Mountains, which were immediately hidden by the clouds.

So Jim suggested putting focus on the interesting shaped tree on the left and I made it much bigger and moved toward the center. That's why it took entire today to work on only one piece. His last comments were 1) I needed put much bigger curved cloud shape on the right to counter balance the heaviness of left trees. 2) the color of the sand beach is too cool. It's not in Hawaii.

Well, at least I got some ideas to work on in my own plein air sessions this summer. When I told him I needed to learn brush strokes, he said it would take planning, confidence and some practices. I have to work on that too. It was quite intensive but productive three days. I'm very tired tonight.