6" x 8"
San Rafael Ridgeline #17

I painted in a new spot today.  There's a great hiking trail along the ridge that runs between San Anselmo and San Rafael, and you can park your car pretty close by.  There's some nice shade under the Eucalyptus and great views - lots of distant mountains to practice painting.  This was the first one I did.  I focused on connecting value shapes and trying to get that mountain in the distance to set back -I think it could even go a few shades lighter.  In the second painting I used a different brush -  a filbert - and it painted these blobby shapes and the whole thing looked like gumdrops, so I gave it a good scraping, and now it's gone. Just like that, poof!

I'm headed back there tomorrow morning and hope to get more done. I'm definitely going to paint larger, 8" x 10".  Below are some photos I took today.  The first one is of Tim painting a scene which I would have never dared paint and his painting turned out lovely, of course.

Tim painting under giant Eucalyptus

the view South towards Mt Tam.  I'm going to paint this tomorrw.