An Almost Green Scene

The sun is shining, the sky is blue without a cloud and our Wednesday plein air gang are ready to paint. This venue is off a small country road that runs along a huge olive tree orchard. Very little traffic passes. Plenty of birds are communicating. Everything growing is green from the fantastic weather we are having. Even the creek has a green color. I have been here before and seen the creek encrusted with a blanket of algae. It is on its way. I started with wet paper and put in the sky and pond. They nearly dried in minutes so I blocked out a tree and growies on the left. It was a matter of squinting and adding darks to give some depth to these. My initial sketch had a value change from background light to dark in the foreground. You can learn so much from being there, on location and painting.