
I started painting the swamp water at home but I’ll need to do more work on it before I can finish the branches that cross the water. Those thin branches will need another coat of paint and some orange cypress needles. (not sure if you call them needles but they don’t look like leaves either.)
Tomorrow I’ll work on the mud. I’m looking forward to that. It has bright sunlight going across it on an angle with shadows from the trees. Then the sunlight continues across the water with tree shadows continued. That’s still a lot of work before I put the orange in the fore ground over top of the water. So that’s still a lot more layers of paint.

When I got there today and compared what I had finished on the background last week to the colors of nature I wanted to warm up my background trees so I used my modified fan brush and lightly brushed in some new bark colors.
It was fun to do the highlights on the leaves also with my modified fan brush.
It was windy but the overlook is somewhat sheltered and my painting didn’t fall off the easel. I was standing way back from the painting with my brushes taped to yardsticks and didn’t have to worry because sometimes when it’s windy I have to keep a hand on the canvas. It was cold too.
Then when I was packing my things to go home I had the painting propped up on the deck and it fell down! It didn’t leave any paint on the deck but it did pick up some of the fallen cypress needles which stuck to the wet paint. You can see the dirt in the photo. when it dries the dirt will brush off.

This is my modified fan brush next to a blob of brown paint on my palette. I cut the bristles zig zag. It’s great for painting in 15 dots and a smear all at once, or rough lines. I use this brush all the time. It’s one of my favorites. You can get so many textures and they’re easy and fast to make.
That’s how soupy I like my paint for building up layers. I add a few drops of terpenoid and mix it in well with a palette knife.
The last thing I’ll do is the Spanish moss.