Progress on Mt Meron path picture

What you see here is progress of yesterday evening. From a blank canvas to this took about two hours, maybe a bit less.

I started with a phthalo blue underpaint wash (which you can see poking through the shady bit of the path at the bottom). I then started from the top down. Soon I realized this was not going to get me where I wanted to go (too regimented) and I started just blocking in color over the whole canvas.

Build it up and this is what came out. It is not finished yet, but the challenge now is not to lose the spontaneity of the picture when I add in finer, more careful detail.

My palette was sap and olive greens, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, titanium white and oxide black.

I must say I was pretty amazed at what came out. It’s that feeling of the painting flowing sub-consciously from my fingers, working instinctively and not really knowing how I got there. It is now about half a year since I last picked up a brush and I was not expecting this.