Next I start working on the middle values.

First is the background.  I pull out my number 1 filberts, rounds and flats to put in the shapes.

Working back to front, I move toward the middle ground and then lay in the first layers of the pasture.  As I move forward…the brushes get bigger.

After I get the middle and foreground covered, I move back to the background to finish the details.  I finished the out-building and fencing there.  I can’t start the oak tree canopy, until the background is finished.

Next I put the first coat of paint on the gate and foreground fencing. 

I also layed in the first grapevine leaves on the top of the butterfly gate.  These strokes were thick and free-spirited.  There is already a couple layers of paint on the pasture behind the leaves and since these will be very detailed at the end, I used more of a 3d modeling effect with my brushwork to make them pop out at the viewer.

The painting starts looking a little flat right about now, but that’s ok.  In the final stages of painting, I will be putting in the darkest darks and highlights to accent the details and make it come alive!

The underpainting is done and just in time for the weekend.  I will let it dry for the next few days before I begin again.

I made sure I was pleased with the distance mountain range and the far edge of the property on the horizon before I quit for the day.  These areas must be completed before I can start to work on the middle and foreground.  In landscapes, you paint back to front and everything underneath another element first.  This is why the fencing and gate will be the last items I work on.

I finally get to enjoy the wonderful smell of my oil paints and feel the brushes in my hands.  ;)   I begin the underpainting.

Oak trees are the most amazingly shaped trees on the planet and probably the most fun to paint.  It almost looks like I have tried to finish the foreground tree trunk…but no.   That is just decades of studying the abstract shapes in the trunk and branches of these majestic trees and utilizing my brush strokes in a way that the very thinned down oil paint pudddles where I want it.  As the Turpenoid dries (very quickly), I am able to achieve a sense of form and tiny shapes.

Once the painting progresses, all that you see now in the tree trunk will be covered up with subsequent layers.  However this initial modeling with the thin paint  helps me to make decisions for later.  I am sorting out my final choices in values of  light, darks and shapes to see how they will influence the perspective.  A process that all artists must constantly be aware of from beginning to end.