Blog

Whew - like the old John Denver song - some days are diamonds, some days are stones! It's been slow going the past couple of days, so I didn't post anything yesterday. I've been working on the water reflections and after I finally got all the big shapes and colors right I decided to blend again with the long edge of my little finger to obtain the softness of the reflections, blending straight down. Then I went back in with the small strokes of color, indicating ripples. I've still got several more problems to work out, but I think I'm almost there. The actual title for this painting will be "Fresh June Snow".
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Here I have basically finished the mountains and have started adding more color and detail to the trees. I don't want to make them TOO detailed so as not to detract from the mountains. Right now the trees in the foreground are very warm shades of green. I may tone that down after I get everything else in. I've also added more color to the water and reflections. 

I normally don't blend the pastels after I have put them down, but here I have blended the blues in the sky (with my fingers) to achieve the gradated color. I also took a kneaded eraser and just barely touched upon and softened the edges of the big horizontal shadow of a cloud on the mountains.

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Here is a close-up detail of "Teton Morning" in progress.Working from top to bottom and left to right to keep from smudging things up, I am adding details to the mountain tops and working into the trees in the distance. It's amazing how well defined the timberline is. I have also added warmer colors to the trees in the foreground (not pictured here) which I will show tomorrow. 

As I have been working on this painting, it has taken me back to when I lived in Estes Park, Colorado,  where I could enjoy a spectacular scene like this one every day. The Rocky Mountains are truly an amazing part of the West. 

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