This week I finally took the plunge and made a painting that was not a copy of someone else's or from a tutorial. This is a painting from my own reference photo which is below.

I had many challenges here! I was trying to show some variation in tone and shadow of the mountain range without putting too much detail there so it would look far away. I loved those creamy white flowers in the field, but I didn't know how to preserve those light areas and paint around them. I wanted to have a mixture of soft and crisp edges of the grasses and plants in the field, while showing all the variation in colors. I think it just looks like blobs of color though and might be too busy. One encouraging thing that happened was when my husband first saw the painting, he asked me "is that Roan Mountain?" Without me telling him he recognized the scene I was painting.

This is Roan Mountain in Tennessee in late Summer.