nevado the appaloosa: background noodling

the majority of what remains on this painting is figuring out what to do in the background and/or fixing the stuff i have already done and, in my opinion, messed up. this is one of the problems of making each painting an adventure by not planning but i like the challenge and the risk of a failed painting is well worth it for the fun of it! i do want to try to emulate the corral behind nevado so i am going to maintain the geometric motif but try to make it a bit more homogeneous in color and texture so as to not detract from our star appaloosa too much. i like working shapes so that in one place they are positive shapes (dark against light) and move into a negative sort of shape (light against dark) as one moves to another area of the object. that is what i am going to attempt to do here and see what it looks like. i used a #16 round blue squirrel quill bush and a combination of mineral violet, quinacridone gold, and brown madder  for the background shapes and cobalt blue and burnt sienna for the railings; all for the most part mixed on the paper.

"nevado the appaloosa" 16"X20"

i think you can appreciate the dark-light and positive-negative interplay. that's all i am going to do on this painting and think i will move on to the next project....more of a figure in landscape.