Work In Progress: "Caught Like A Deer" - Pt. 2

Last night I had my mind set on painting, and luckily everyone else decided to go to bed early. So I started on this again, laying in the first layer of background, and having started on the trees earlier in the day. I plan on blurring the edges of the tree in the middle, in order to push it back and to draw less attention to it. So far I'm loving the quality of light I'm getting (sorry the image is so bad, it's from my phone which has a horrible camera on it) and am hoping I can keep the painterly quality of the background as I go along. I'm really striving to create dappled light as it comes through the trees, and have been dry brushing glazes of greens and yellows and buttercream (I barely ever use pure white anymore) in circular motions in order to achieve that goal.

I would have tried to finish the first layer of the background completely, but Owen had his mind set on other things and I was interrupted about 15 minutes into my work to nurse him back to sleep. It takes me so long to get into the groove and actually start painting that I was unable to get back into it, but on the plus side I did get my studio mostly clean, so YAY! When it's completely clean I'll post a few pics of it, because I'm always curious how other people organize their spaces, and I've had a few friends that have asked to see it.

My first layer of the actual background with light coming through the trees

I'm not sure if I'll be able to work on this today or not, though I really would love to. I am trying to get more painting in because I really want to start selling my work, and I'm thinking, on the advice of my husband and my friend Shannon, that I probably need about 10 - 15 pieces ready before I can do that. I need to figure out how many I have now, but I think it's only 2 (YIKES!). I sure have a long way to go! Well, I better get crackin'! Have a great day!

Oh, and if you want to see my first post on this painting, click here.