This painting was close to finished for a week and I lost momentum on it. It just didn’t feel compelling to me. I usually paint landscapes of familiar places and this image was from a trip to Italy that I took about 5 years ago.
In the photo, the foreground was very dark and I lightened it up considerably. Yesterday, I got the notion to glaze the foreground with black and let the light sit in the sky and distant fields.Then I glazed the clouds with very dilute layers of quin red and hansa yellow. It made a huge difference and suddenly I’m happy with the painting.