I have found that over time I have often avoided large fields of grass, or even one color of flowers (if we aren't doing at least semi-abstract) because getting the right texture without painting all the leaves has seemed hard. I watch my teacher whip out grass by scrambling her brush around, and it still looks like grass. For me, nope, it tends to look like a mottled background or a child's picture.
Having said all of that, I tackled it in this week's project.
One layer in, and I was already happy with my mountains and water. Can't you just see the mist!
It took 2 layers to get the man right. And I love those pine trees on the side of the mountain, a little blue in them really made them work.
But it took about 5 different layers to work on the grass, including one point where I had to leave the room just so I wouldn't have to look at the painting for a few minutes because I was so frustrated. Yes, it was that bad. I began to wish that I had just left the foreground very abstract.
But I didn't.
I kept going, and I have to admit, it turned out alright. I can see that the hill in front is in the foreground, and the rest of the mountain fades back. I would have loved to add a few more pops of color and excitement, but I decided to stop while I was ahead. No use throwing in some new colors and having to start that grass over!
