Start of a new landscape....."watching for the students"

I captured this shot of one of the myriad farms that dot the roadside country around la crosse. I liked the school bus nestled between the barns all ready to leap into action when the school bell tolled. I have included the original photo as I cropped it for the painting, a value editing of it, and the first few shot of the painting process.

For the painting, I started with the sky using a mixture of cobalt blue, raw sienna and a touch of alizarin Crimson permanent and a mid size squirrel quill mop brush by isabey. The bushes were dabbed in with a Chinese calligraphy brush with splayed ends. I was careful to leave some peak-through areas to give them the feeling of airiness. The distant hills were painted in with cobalt blue, vermillion, and cobalt turquoise. I lost some of the top edges to give them a feeling of distance and atmosphere. The bus is initially covered with a coat do Carr yellow (cheap joe's). I started to experiment with the barn painting working with some mixtures of burnt sienna, alizarin Crimson, cobalt blue, mineral violet.......I think the trick is going to be getting it them the right value (duh) and variability of hue.

That's all for now.