Three Tall Trees

This is for Rookie Painter July 2011 challenge. It's oil on 11x14 canvas panel.

I really like the vertical effect of the reference photo (ref photo), the bright and dark contrast, so I had to do this challenge, even with crazy summer travel schedule. The relatively simple palette included cobalt blue, van Dyke brown, burnt umber, sap green, white, cadmium yellow. I added a pop of orange family, including cadmium orange and burnt sienna, to compliment the mostly blue tone photo. I also lightened up the shadow portion of the trees a tiny bit since in the reference photo the shadows were a bit dark.