Under Pastel Skies

My latest attempt for a friend.

Pros:
- My new brushes continue to make the sky easier to paint.
- I got a better sense of how to create small trees in the distance.
- For the first time, I started to see how to create bushy-like grass and make that more realistic.
- I had browns but it didn't turn into a muddy mess of a landscape. That was great.

Lessons:
- I tried adding more liquid white to the canvas than usual to see if mixing would be easier. It made it too easy in some cases, so found myself fighting it when trying to create mountains. I'll keep it thinner next time.
- I included a picture after trying to just blend the sky with a dry brush as he said, but it really messes up the canvas, so not sure what he's doing. I fixed it in a way he didn't show, but I need to check this out more to see what's going on.
- I tried to mix a good blue for the distant mountain, but kept fighting the dark blue and black I included in it, to make it lighter. In the future, if the color isn't quite right with a small amount of paint, I'll just mix it again to try and get it right instead of trying to fix the color.
- Bob's painting had more yellow mist below the mountains. When I got to that point, I had no yellow. Instead of pushing forward as usual, I tried to add some yellow mist to get the same effect, which I think worked well.
- I tried adding some liquid white to the mountain snow to go on top of the thick paint that was there. I think this was a mistake and it should be thicker to get that snow feel.
- Near the end, I dropped the painting. I was trying to paint near an edge and I don't quite know how to use my easel in a way to make this easy. I thought I had ruined the piece. Instead, I took a deep breath and went about fixing it. I scraped off paint, reblended things, and painted over parts. And it all came out ok in the end.

I'm always so surprised by how much I learn from each new painting and how it gets easier and easier.

Until next time!

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