Trees, trees and more trees

I will be working on trees for quite some time. I roughed in the foreground hills and began to detail each hill, trying to add the trees and still keep the hills in the background. Keeping the value consistent is a lot harder than I realized it would be. I keep trying to darken or lighten an area to create detail and shape, but if I go beyond the value it is, it will pull the image into the foreground and the illusion of depth will be lost. Ah well, if it winds up too dark I will just have to go back and lighten it up later.

I did some figuring when I finished the weekend's work and went back through the calendar and blogs to get a rough estimate of painting time on this project. Not counting setup and breakdown of scaffolding and not counting the 15-20 minute lunch when I am there all day, I came up with a total painting time of 47 hours on the wall. I was trying to calculate when I would finish painting, given the amount of time I spend each week. I believe I will easily meet my original deadline of being finished with painting before school starts next September.

I may work on the water next time, just to take a break from all these trees.