I’ve been working in a tiny 4½ x6½ sketchbook for a while, so doing this 9x12 was a real eye opener. Before, I would have painted it all in one sitting on a tiny piece of paper, mixing colors as I went and basically coloring-in areas, moving my brush in any direction. Following Oliver’s excellent video on washes and the video for this scene, I was able to get a much better result. I like working at this bigger size.

I had trouble with the cloud/sky in the area over the rocks and where the sky meets the water. (The color was ugly and too dark.) I tried to lift the paint with a damp brush (probably too vigorously) and put in a different color but ended up making it look dirty and smudged. Is it a matter of practicing to get better skies, or can you actually go in and fix things like that? What do you think of the trees? I couldn’t get the nice shapes that Oliver got so I went back over them a few times. Don't really like being able to see the overlaps and I think the trees area is too heavy. One other thing, I didn’t leave much room for the sand. Is there too much sky?

I have a photo of my own that is similar in composition to this. I'm going to try to paint it applying what I have learned in this painting.