Forest triptych 1/3

Well this was a challenge. A friend saw my forest edge painting and asked me to paint a triptych for her. I spent quite some time planning the paintings, the composition and the way the paintings would flow one into another. I had the most trouble planning the middle one because it kind of seemed it won't have a focal point, so I put in a big rock and a bare tree. I first wanted the path to go from the left painting to the middle one but then I had trouble connecting the lay of the land from the path to the water, because it always seemed that the water will spill out of the lake onto the path. So I reversed the direction of the path.The right painting is roughly based on bob's forest river painting, and the left one on forest edge.
The painting process was not very easy. I first painted gesso backgrounds to get basic shapes. Then I took a day off so I had a lot of time and no distractions like kids and I spent all day painting. I painted all three paintings at once because I really wanted the colors to match. I used the half size round brush for the foliage and it's very easy to use and effective. I tried really hard to make all the trees individuals. In the first painting I had some trouble painting the bark of the big tree (and I was quite tired by that point) but in the end I think it turned out ok. The middle painting is probably my favorite. Love the way the rock turned out, the green color makes it look covered in moss. I couldn't decide where to start the path so it ended up being a crossroads. I really like the color of the water (prussian blue with a touch of sap green). I was thinking of putting in another big leafy tree but then decided an evergreen would be better. I scattered around some moss covered stones so that the paintings have some more connecting elements.
In the end it took me eight hours to finish all of this and I was quite tired by the time I finished. But I'm very very happy with the result. It was a great and relly fun (if also quite difficult) project.

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