Well it’s finished! It’s one of those perfect fall days with beautiful colors that stretch forever and dark stormy clouds moving briskly across the sky. One minute its raining and the next, the sun is highlighting the distant trees. You can smell winter in the air but the sun still warms your skin.

I have finished the foreground trees and have nearly finished the row of pines in the back. I’m really happy with the colours – it’s one of those very muted fall days with the heavy gray sky softening leaves that would otherwise be so much brighter.

I’ve finished all the shadowy undergrowth. I loved using the cool greens and purples – normally reserved to show distance – in the foreground and the warmer greens and oranges right up against the grey sky.  I’m such a rebel

I got a lot more of the foreground forest completed. I love the way the purples and greens I’m using look blue against all the oranges. I think if I used actual blue it would look completely out of place.

I really wanted to see what the bottom area of the painting looks like. This is almost ground level and the trunks are in shadow with lots of dark reds, purples and greens.

Here’s where I stopped yesterday. I now have a good feel for how all the trees will relate to each other.

Working along on this one. I really wanted to see the sky so I snuck up and put some in And there are four pines near the back deep in coversation. I’m not sure all this talking will help, but I can see they feel it’s important to stick together