So the first image is the wall right after the arches had been transferred and masked off. Then I applied primer inside the arches and after the primer had dried it made perfect sense to construct the enlargement grid – which is about the time that I realized how nervous I was about this project. After determining that it would work best to paint from the background forward, I promptly painted over most of the enlargement grid with sky, water and grass. 
After the enlargement grid was re-traced it was time for the real fun to begin! What followed was hours of mixing colors, applying the color, FREAKING OUT, and re-mixing the color to try that again. Finally the background was forming and I was picking up some momentum. Now that the project was about 1/3rd of the way finished I started to feel like I had a plan that was working. Then I hit the first snag…
The scene has a white farm house sitting on a hill in the background. The first time the house was blocked onto the hill it seemed too big. It was a Saturday and I had some other stuff to take care of at home, so I asked Larry and Nancy (the clients) to look it over through the rest of the weekend and let me know how they felt next time I came out. We agreed that the house was too big so I had to concoct a way to shave it down.
This image shows the house in progress after it was reduced. The weird color blotches show how I used the tree color behind the house to push the edges inward, making the house smaller.
Next week I will share about the highly intimidating process of painting the water in the lake.
