I've done a little more work on this over the last few days. I'm now bringing the shadow areas down in tone, and have started to add a few bark textures to the body of the tree. I've inserted two close-ups to show you how loosely I've painted it so far.
Some loosely applied brushwork in washes and glazes accumulates into an illusion of detail rather quickly. At this stage, I haven't mixed white into my colours.
Working in front of people, and standing up at the drawing board has helped me to keep this painting at arm's length, where I can always see the whole painting, stand back, squint a lot, and not become consumed by small areas of detail. I'm at a critical stage now, where I need to concentrate on bringing the painting on as a whole to retain the overall balance of light, colour and just enough detail.
