This composition and painting is for one of my friends from the workshop today, and I hope you don’t mind me picking up on your idea. I wanted to make sure I explained how I would paint the scene. Keeping the light behind the trees and pulling the light through the water makes an pretty interesting painting with a fairly simple subject. I didn’t quite get anything to work the way I wanted except the sky and the water, I think the trees could be a little bit more interesting.
I painted the sky and the water with an 1.5 inch sky flow brush working on a cool violet light with interesting passages of white paper. I worked the brush in a curvilinear fashion trying to get as much variety in these simple passages.
I moved to a number 16 round and brushed in the trees making sure to let the light from the sky play through the openings in the trees and then picking up a few tree trunks and texture for the leaves.
Again with the round brush I mixed up a darker version of the water and painted in some movement and reflections. I think this helps pull the water together. I also scraped some lights off the rocks before they dried.
stunning. spectacularly stunning.