10-23-08 and 10-24-08 Paradise Found - Total hours: 22.56 hours - Size: 14" X 20"

I highlighted a few of the trees, added bushes to the foreground and fallen leaves to the ground.  I'm done!

10-22-08 Paradise Found

I worked on highlighting the house and the mountain, as well as adding more variation to the color of the water in the foreground.

10-20-08 Paradise Found

I underpainted rocks in the yard near the house, then worked on detailing the house.  I also underpainted a couple of bushes in the same area.  The position/angle of the house in my reference material is different from the way it needs to be in the painting, so I'm playing with it to achieve the desired results.

10-18-08 and 10-19-08 Paradise Found

I worked on the variations in color in the water and created a small waterfall.  I continued adding color to the leaves on the trees and a little on the rocks in the foreground.  I changed the color of the house to brown.  It would appear that the house needs reshaping.

10-13-08 Paradise Found

I worked on the trees in the left foreground, doing the same thing I did on the right.

10-12-08 Paradise Found

Using the #4 synthetic sable, I painted reflections of trees along the shoreline.  Using that same brush, I underpainted the waterfall and the larger of the tree trunks.  For the smaller limbs I used two different sizes of scriptliner brushes.  I also used the #4 sable for the leaves on the trees in the foreground on the right. The leaves are a little too red for aspen or birch.  I took creative license with the color.  The trunks are underpainted with a combination of raw umber, ultramarine blue and Payne's gray.  Over that, using a sideways dab type swipe, I used white with a touch of orange/yellow mixed in.  I also worked on the water color.

10-11-08 Paradise Found

I worked on defining the rocks and underpainted a bush and a tree trunk.  For the bush I used the number 10 bristle brush.  For defining the rocks I used a #4 synthetic sable - one of the thicker ones.

10-10-08 Paradise Found

Using a #10 bristle brush I underpainted rocks in the foreground.  The key to underpainting rocks is to dab this way and that with a number of different bright and dark colors.  Otherwise the rocks will look like they are paint by number.

10-7-08 Paradise Found

I drew in the house and blocked in the underpainting.  I extended the river, covering over part of what had been the shoreline.  Behind the house I wiped out part of the closest mountain, and made that part of the mountain peak ridge, so there would be a good view from the other side of the house.

10-6-08 Paradise Found

I painted in the mountain reflection.  Doing exactly the same thing in another place, upside down is challenging.  I'm not recording my technique for the mountain reflection because this is the first time I've painted a mountain's reflection, and I'm not sure what I'm doing yet.  Next I added more trees, closer in.  I had to paint over some of the underpainted green along the shoreline, covering it with sky pink.  I will re-add that green in the form of tree reflections later.

10-4-08 Paradise Found

I added trees to the second layer of mountains and tree reflections in the water.

10-2-08 Paradise Found

Using a 1 inch Creative Mark Ebony Splendor synthetic wash brush, I streaked the sky with an alizarin crimson and white mix and a little blue and white here and there.  I then underpainted the tallest peaks and the background mountains with mixture of ultramarine blue, diox. purple and white in varying combinations.  The next layer of mountains forward needed to be darker, so I did them with a combination of Payne's grey, raw umber and white.  For the foreground, I added a touch of green to the mixture for the evergreen trees.  The closer I got to the front the darker I made the mixture - that's standard.  The closer things are the darker they look, in general.

Once it was all underpainted, I returned to the tallest peaks and added the next layer.  This time I used the #8 Creative Mark Ebony Splendor synthetic brush to add the craggy parts of the mountains.  I used alizarin crimson, a few touches of Indian yellow, raw umber and Payne's gray in varying combinations to make the mountains look like they are in the sun and taking on the color of the sky.

I'm loosely following Bob Ross's painting called Mountain at Sunset.  It's in his book The Best of the Joy of Painting.  The major problem is that with his step by step instructions, the painting is in black and white.  Only the finished product is in color.

10-1-08 Paradise Found

After looking over what I'd done yesterday, I decided to redo it.  It was too smoky looking.  I gessoed over it all.  This time I did the bottom and the top, blending just the ultramarine blue into the gesso.  I started at the bottom and top edges, not blending in very far.  Then with alizarin crimson and Indian yellow, I started in the center and blended up and down.  I think I should have added less yellow.  I will scumble in more alizarin crimson and white, once it all dries.

The verdict is still out on the sponge brush.  It works good at applying it all, but in the final feather-blending, I seem to need a hake brush.

9-30-08 Paradise Found

This time I decided to do the background with a two inch sponge-like brush.  It's called a poly-brush - a very fine-celled sponge with a tapered/chiseled end, on a stick.  I got tired of the hake brush leaking hairs onto the canvas.  I applied white gesso to the entire canvas using Xs.  To that I double-loaded the brush with Indian yellow and alizarin crimson, applying it to the center of the canvas and blending up; then added more of the same colors and blended down.  To the top I added ultramarine blue and a little burnt sienna and blended down and nearly lost the peachy color.  So I had to keep adding the first two colors in the center so the sky would not be all grey.  I also had to be careful not to mix the blue with the yellow or my sky would have turned green.  So far it looks like the sponge brush has done a good job.  I'll have to wait until it's dry to see how it looks relative to the blending.