Hi everyone - I haven't posted on here for a while as I didn't do any painting over the summer, but I've finally found the time and enthusiasm to start up again.

Last weekend we went on a short family walk to see the latest progress of the 'Lower Otter Restoration Project' (LORP) at Budleigh. It's taken nearly 3 years but is finally close to being finished. It's basically about restoring a flood plain area that runs alongside the River Otter where it flows into the sea at Budleigh. We walked along a brand new footpath, along what used to be fields and a cricket ground, looking over an area that will now flood at high tide. Unfortunately we went at low tide, but it was still fascinating to see the change! The waterway in the images below isn't actually the River Otter, but another stream that runs quite close by. Anyway, I liked the snaking ribbon of blue, and the contrast with the dark earth of the field that's gradually been losing its grass after being repeatedly flooded. It will be interesting to see how the area changes with time as the harsh man-made 'landscaping' softens (not so evident here, but further down there are lots of man-made channels, and big piles of rocks protecting the new paths).

I tried to combine the river and treeline from the first photo with the foreground reeds of the second, to give a bit more foreground interest. The top-left painting was an initial small quick sketch, and then the second one is a bigger (A4) more careful attempt. I ended up massively overworking the second one though, and really struggled to get the foreground looking half decent, so I had another go (back to about A5 size) and did a much more careful drawing, as I got the perspective completely wrong on the first two attempts (I could say it was a deliberate decision to spread the river out to fill more of the vertical space, but it was actually my poor drawing skills!). I decided to crop in on the river more, to avoid painting in a panoramic format, and the final photo shows what I copied.

I feel like there's still a lot of room for improvement on this, but I'm not sure I can face doing another version! Is it worth pursuing, and if so, should I have another go at putting in a better foreground? (I know I made the classic mistake of trying to add too many individual grasses!) Or do I just move on, and get a better reference photo next time, when the tide is higher?

All comments and suggestions gratefully received!