What's on Ellen's easel

 I’m calling this one finished. I again adjusted some values and colours and reached the end. I know when a painting is done when I’m holding the paintbrush and can’t find anything else that needs more paint. My paintings are supposed to look like paintings...

 Comparing the reference photo with the painting I saw the trees and some furniture shadows needed darkening. The dark values are what gives depth and realism. I worked around the painting darkening a lot of the values. It’s harder to work with your...

 The shadows were darkened all around the walls and darker areas in the trees added. But most of the session was for details in the furniture darkening values.

 Another couple of hours concentrating on mostly the values. To achieve realism the lights and darks have to be right. Many paintings fail because of washed out differences between the lightest and darkest values. It’s hard to judge how dark something...