Orchard Blossoms

With the beautiful weather West Michigan experienced this past week, I was able to paint two more times in the orchards. The apple trees were just starting to blossom, so I chose plum and pear trees, which are the first to bloom. This is a progression of the painting session which took about two  hours.

My subject, a plum orchard.

A wash of transparent oxide brown and yellow ochre. Then massed in the trees with middle value grays.

I left out some of the grass area, condensed it, to add the road for more interest on the left side of the composition.

I spent a considerable amount of time, probably too much, on the tall back ground trees and the negative space of sky holes.

My palette consisted of T.white, cad yellow lt., yellow ochre lt.,  cad.red lt., Aliz., ultra blue, cerelean blue, viridian, transparent oxide brown and maganeze violet.

Plum Blossoms, oil, 9x12