Tree and Hillside (Oil Bar Painting as of January 18, 2015)

This morning I worked on this oil bar painting, I am painting this scene from photos that I took in late October at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, MA. (You can see my reference photos posted here on January 2nd and 3rd.) Today my focus was trying to make the tree branches more three-dimensional. I started by looking at the reference photos on the computer. I zoomed in and adjusted the exposure to try to see where and how the branches joined the tree, and where the light hit the branches. I make some notations on a print-out of the photo, and then I went to work on the canvas. I used dark blue to indicate shadow and added light with pale blue. I think I made progress by adding some foreshortening, and trying to indicate which branches were closer to the "front" of the picture plane.