19 Days, starting to really get into these landscapes "again"

I started a painting yesterday, well, I worked on it but it doesn't make me happy yet, so I put it on the back burner and pulled out a sketch that I did on location, just a little blip in the Coldwater River (you know, the one that runs through Waterworks park, well, it goes on quite a way, and out on one of those roads that run north and south just East of Angola Road. The Blue Moon Group (Bev, Sue, Carol and myself). my friend Carol and I found this little stream, it's not much, and this painting now makes it look very large, but that's not the case it was only about 5 or 6 feet across and not very deep, but then I didn't have the photo I took so I just painted, and made up pretty much most of it, I have a tendency to make things look a bit non-realistic when that happens, but oh well, I started to really get into it, so this is what you got today.

I just used the watercolor sketch that I started last summer and kept adjusting it, the original was painted with transparent colors that were pretty much brown and green, not very interesting, so I (of course), got out the opaques, those watercolors are so versatile that I am really getting to love them. There wasn't much sky so I just put a bit in the corner for interest, then yellow green in the very back ground, leaving the foreground trees and foliage until almost last, I put in some highlights on the water, they were too large so I went in with some greens and blues and in the foreground, some brown and a golden color that is between yellow ochre and yellow orange, when I find it I'll let you know what it is, it's very rich and luscious. I kept at the water, adjusting it and moving forward and attempting to put in some water action so it looks something like water, I think it's pretty good, considering I didn't have the photo to look at (it's somewhere), anyway, I then put in the tree trunks (remember that the water is like the background, with all the foliage falling over it you have to put that in first, it's kind of like putting the sky in first then the tree branches, you know.
So then, I put some more leaves on the trees in the foreground and some weeds on the banks (mostly to hide the inequities) and voila! It's a painting.

This one is painted on my regular Arches cold press, this paper is a little thicker than 140#, it's called 260# Mural paper, the paper size is very large 26" x 40" when you fold it in half the long way, then fold it in half again the long way, then fold it in half the short way and then fold each one of those in 1/3rds, you get about 6-1/2 or so square, it makes 24 pieces out of each piece, just the size of these little gems, and I do think they are gems, I'm loving them, hope you do too.