Painting #76 - ahead of schedule

I had this one almost done when I blogged the last one, tomorrow is Sunday and I'm trying to keep my husband happy, well, at least not antagonistic toward the blog painting, he's already mentioned that he wasn't sure he could handle it, so I thought that I would try to get a head start, well, this is for Sunday which is April 10th and my day with my husband, so there!

This photo was taken on top of a hill (obviously), the place is Negawnee, MI, the south shore of Lake Superior, west of Marquette, it was a lovely place, I took a Nita Engle Workshop there, and it was one of the best workshops I had attended at the time, I understand that she isn't doing that anymore, so sorry to hear that but she must be getting upwards of 80, maybe more, she was at least 62 or so 20 plus years ago, so I can really understand that, as I am 65 now and I'm not sure I can be teaching at 80, God willing, I will be.

I wanted something that wasn't sea or creek or falls, so I thought that I might be able to do these rocks, I barely saw the little flowers in the foreground, that put a nice little point of interest, so, here goes.

The sky was first, the purple/blue/gray and white color I usually use, then I wanted to get that far away hill in, you can barely see it, but it is there, then the little valley with the houses, I didn't want any of those houses to be too in focus, didn't want to do the detail of that, that would have been too much, the focus of this painting is the rocks and the flowers, the valley is just secondary. I put in the rocks and grasses with some beige mixed with some yellow ochre and brown and white, then the weeds which is mostly yellow ochre grayed down a bit, I didn't really get the rocks the correct color, they were more rusty, but, I didn't want to mess up these rocks because they seemed to be working, oh well, redder rocks next time. Then I just went in to the valley part and laid in some very grayed down blue/green and while it was wet, put the house and roof shapes in so they melted a bit together, then some tree shapes that looked like pine trees. When that was dry, I went for the rocks, and just tried to put highlights on the tops and some shadows on them. The grasses were next, I worked the rocks back and forth with the grasses until I got it to look the way I wanted, then I spattered yellow for some flowers and put in those Queen Anne's Lace and then some stems to connect them, I have enjoyed this little painting, and sure hope you do too.