Up in the mountains

Love that tree.

Hi Tom, thanks for your comment. I find watercolors more difficult to control, I guess due to the lack of experience with them. I always thought that they are somewhat weak in color, till I quite recently saw Hado's bold watercolors. I think texture is more important to me, thickness of paint as well, and watercolors do not have it. I would say gouache is the better water media for me. Acrylics - did not do them for 2 years already, so cannot really say if I like them or not now. But every paint is for different use. To sum up - any of them need practice and a lot of it to understand material properties, brush marks, brush materials, canvas/paper.

Umagaan, yes the tree caught my attention too, i found it after almost year and half without seeing this piece, I was surprised how the tree turned out. :)

Yes, indeed, on the opposite side :) I like mixing with white as it makes transparent colors non transparent for main layer. Only when i think i did not do enough shadows or color is missed I go in with transparent on top and with glaze. But in general I came to the same thought that more muted colors in the landscape is better to bring the focal point out with touches of almost pure color. Many color mixes I investigate recently are not pure out of the tube. I think you are right about having subdued colors adding more realism. However every time i see my favorite Aivazovsky - my mind is blown away. Of course he had different periods in his art, younger years are more colorful... I did not investigate any other artist so close yet. I am reading biography of Van Gogh now, may be it will shed more light on his art methods.
Anyway I know that for me I need to go out painting nature to investigate/learn it better in conjunction to painting. Yesterday i observed magnificent sunset with two layers of clouds at different heights, I was looking and thinking what colors i will need to use to transfer it on the canvas... one step to my goal :)

Nice work!!!