next stages of the current painting "a few stragglers"

i have been having trouble with the internet connectivity and went up to the "big city" for groceries yesterday.  along with that its a nice day today and i'm going out to play in the desert a little later.  the net result is that i only worked about an hour on the painting this morning and i am afraid that is going to be it for the day.

i began by adding a rather flat neutral wash to the distant mountain side. i kept it devoid of any real detail both because of the distance and the more complicated nature of the distant shore side trees and bushes and the foreground figures which have yet to be put in. i used raw sienna, a touch of burnt sienna, and cerulean blue mixed mostly on the paper after "splashing on " the colors.  i do this to try to keep things loose when i have a larger area to cover that hasn't much if any detail...like this.

next stages of  "a few stragglers"

the next and last thing that i did today which took up most of the hour was put in the pines/firs/spruce on the distant shore. i used various combinations of hookers green with quinacridone gold, cerulean blue with raw sienna, ultramarine blue with both the gold and raw sienna, and hookers with burnt sienna. it was  important to me to mix up both the colors and the sizes of the trees for variety and interest.  of course these trees are reflected in the lake and these were added recapitulating the shoreline patterns but in a lighter value.