Painting in Progress Step 3

Time to leave the sky in peace and get down a bit!I painted some mountains in the same colours I had used for the sky and clouds to create the illusion of distance.A landscape is usually painted from background to foreground,that is from the furthest point in the horizon to the closest thing before the viewer's eyes.That's the same method I usually follow.
When the mountains looked convincing enough to me I moved to painting some distant houses and trees.I was still working on the illusion of depth and distance in my painting so I painted some houses that looked even further behind another group of houses.
Time to get closer now. I painted some trees in the foreground on the right side of the painting.I wanted it a summer/autumn landscape so I knew what colours I was going to use.
Trees on both sides of the painting are a good way to create a focal point in the painting and guide the viewr's eyes to where I want them to go.To create 3 dimensional trees,that is to give them depth ,I painted them in the shadow colour (the dark one),then I started highlighting them to create the effect of the sunlight striking the leaves.
Next step will be painting some trees on the left side of the painting and working on a field of wheat where I have blocked that mass of dark brown which is mixture of burnt umber,burnt sienna and yellow ochre.