Well, I did this one by myself, I have tried to adapt a little impressionism, Getting the depth was a challenge, I think I'll try another scene and try a little harder to make it more impressionistic, trying to loosen up, I get caught up on a small area. This is a 16x20, maybe I'll go bigger

Final Cottage at castle

I know in my mind I've finished because I've signed it.
So here 'tis Barb. I'll tell you what I did, Those leaves at the front, I did them in stages. I left the edges of the leaves bright green to make them stand out. I didn't like them for a long time and I've probably got too many layers on it. The argument in my head is I want them to stand out, but they don't in the original photo
In the river, because it is light, I used grey and blue to give ripples and movement. Put a darker grey on a few of the rocks to help with the perception of distance

Half way there. So I've covered the board and I'm working my way around the big tree on the top right. I'm going to start with the closer folaige now. The next set of leaves will be brighter, closer and sharper, hopefully giving the tree dimension and shape.

I have finally finished my puffin painting most of the grass and flowers were done with a 6 round. It took 3 goes to get some of the flowers white.

Blue Water

One of the things I'm still working on is keeping a smooth surface, for instance, the deep blue water with dark shadows of the trees. Black, like white is rarely simply black, it is a sumation of its surroundings. So the water at the bottom is deep blue and the black shadows is more of a deeper blue to almost black.

This may take a while

I seem to be working anti clockwise. I know I need to cover the whole canvas, I seem to be picking areas, I don't suppose it matters, I'll be doing the trees last. Barb has reminded me not to make this layer too thick - if you put the layers on too thick, the paint might crack.

Trying this at home

I've finally started my new at home painting, It's a photo taken in the gardens of Dunvegan castle Scotland.
The wonderful textures should keep me quiet for a while. So far I have drawn the shapes and started from the top left, I have worked on the worker's cottage and the background trees