So I ask myself, "When am I done with this painting?"

...When it doesn't bug me in some way ... 
This painting is called "Aspen Grove".

This painting wasn't bad last time I posted, but it just didn't "feel" right to me.  I don't know why, it is just something I felt.  I did more layers of pastel, so that now the watercolor underpainting is mostly obliterated.  Oh, well, Richard McKinley said sometimes the painting just needs more pastel to make it work.  ....But I still aspire to be able to do very little pastel and let the watercolor show through ... 

... maybe I'm close to being done now...it doesn't look too bad here ...

Fall Grasses in Sunlight

Today we are having quite a bit of rain. Actually, that is very good. I'm glad our plein air workshop was last week and not this week!

I painted another painting of this scene in Hope Valley. This time I took out the tree branches draping over the rock to see how it would look without them. It opens up the picture and the important thing now is the sun hitting the grass and surrounding willows.

This painting was done on blue-green La Carte. It was an adjustment to go back to my usual papers! At first I felt like I was lost and didn't know what to do. But as the painting progressed I no longer felt like a foreigner.