I recently did a painting of a mountain valley, and I wanted to share it as well as some of the earlier failed attempts, as I figured out the composition and how I wanted to approach the image.
Nope. Definitely not. I just stopped and didn't even try to finish it.
Better, I suppose, but way too dark. Not enough contrast.
In this last one I pushed the feeling of light by simultaneously dropping stronger shadows across the valley and adding the white caps to the tips of the mountains. Those mountain tops, in order to really pop, are basically the only pure white sections in the painting besides that sliver of road. I even pre-washed the sky with a very pale wash of yellow, and did a pale grey wash over everything, after the clouds were formed and dried. The combo knocked the clouds and sky back some. The combo of the recessive sky and the pure white mountain tops got the affect I was looking for.
