For a long time this afternoon I just sat and looked at my reference photo, not painting, just wondering what I was going to do next. Eventually I decided I had to put in the far tree trunks, the ones which are so pale you can hardly see them in the distance.
Even then it took a while before I put brush to paper – was the paint going to be too dark, should I wet the paper first? I did, and then tentatively painted a few strokes… to realise they’d just disappeared into the damp background! So I waited a bit longer & tried again with slightly better results. Then I tried adding some more leaf colour, attempting a technique I’d learnt maybe 20 years ago on a Ron Ranson workshop, sort of dry brush but with a big hake. I suspect I can’t remember it properly because it failed dramatically.
At that stage I was ready to stop and admit defeat, but I still had to wait for it to dry before scanning in and had nothing to lose, so I splashed some more colour on and spread it around a bit. It improved it, or even saved it… this time when it dried I scanned it in.
Obviously it has a long way to go, but at least for now it’s still going 🙂