Walk Into Spring - Episode I

Pear Trees on Ockley - The Adventure Begins


I started on the pear trees painting today. One of the things I read somewhere recently that has helped me most: in almost all paintings from life, the first thing you see should be the last thing you paint! Keeping this in the front of my mind helps me from getting caught up in painting details too early.


On this painting, though, I decided to get the treetops mostly finished before starting on the shadowy part in the foreground, because painting the trees is what I’m most apprehensive about in this painting. I just looked up “apprehensive” – it means “anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen.” Yep, that’s the feeling I have about trying to get the trees right. So if I tackle that first, the rest of the painting should be a breeze, right?