Koolau Glory

The technique for this Koolau painting worked better than the first one.  Because of the black gesso base, with liquid clear over it, there is less mud created when I lay down the ridges.  This allows the greens to stay brighter too, so the overall painting is brighter and richer.  I am getting the hang of creating the ridges better, from studying their structure longer, and simply by painting them over and over.  I created a little more variation in the sky with Indian Yellow in the lower sky and right side, and by throwing a lavendar cloud in there too.  The mountain on the left somehow came out great again.  Overall I like the whole painting more than the first one.

Ok, a day later, I made some mods after discussions with my in-house fine arts expert...my dear wife Sandy.  I played down the dark valleys between the ridges on the left side of the range.  Added dark color to the bottom left corner, and redid some of the grasses for better depth and interest.  Also scraped off the banana trees in the bottom right, added black background, and put new banana leaves back in.  Here is the pic:

Small changes can make great impacts!