First I laid down the early morning sunlight breaking in between the mountains of Sierra granite, wet-on-wet. Next I painted in some base hues for the mountains wet-on-dry and more yellowish sunlight hues for the rest of the valley forest. Next I painted in the sky wet-on-wet. After the sky dried, I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to pull off some of it to create a sun glare effect. I also started painting in the valley floor tree shapes. As I went from the distant trees to the foreground trees, I painted very loosely, very wet-on-dry, and wet-on-wet with my drafting table (that I always paint on) at about a forty five degree tilt so the paint would run. I varied the greens and threw in some complimentary accents of cadmium red. I could have painted in more realistically detailed trees, but I'm not a detail person. Whenever I go detail, my paintings go boring. In the last photo, I worked on the two mountain planes on the left. I'm liking how the tonal range is getting more dramatic, and I'm starting to create the feeling of early morning sun brightly illuminating the valley floor. This painting could have gone "south" very easily, but at this point where I have stopped, it looks like it definitely going in the right direction. I will be bringing my watercolor to completion within the next day or so. As the world-renown Aussi painter Bob Wade once said on one of his video productions, "wish me luck and wave me goodbye".
