In 2018 we shot a fantastic photo in Cong's wood (west of Ireland, where The Quiet Man was filmed) and this is my attempt at painting it.
This time I'm following the method used by Andrew Tischler, and therefore I toned the canvas to have some real interesting surface so I could judge the colours better - and indeed I liked how vivid they are. The drawing is just blocking shapes with a brush here - it's all free hand. Beginning of the story:
The block in stage is now almost finished:
Here the details of the woods in the distance and on the left are almost finished:
At this point the water then needed to be worked a little, so here it is - this is where I am at today, but it needs a lot more work before getting to consider the water finished.
Also, need to do the tree in the foreground (the top of the painting) as that is still in the block-in phase.
Adrew's precious feedback was this (this was years ago, when I sent him an email to which he kindly replied - nowadays I don't think he does it any more, unless you become a Patron etc.):
"This is a good start. I would keep going. I would really try to use the paint. In some areas you may have thinned it out too much or at least not achieved brushstrokes. Don't be
afraid of the brushstrokes!
I can see that you have made a start on the leaves in the top of the painting, but I would break this up and make it a bit more random. So far that leaves are a bit too equally spaced.
With ripples, you may need more reference. Water flattens out to a plain in the distance and the ripples will appear dead flat - horizontal. They may even lengthen and appear as straight lines cutting across. A the moment you have a nice orderly pattern going over the water. I've not seen this before, so I would keep refining this area".