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I did a few more thumbnails based on a walk I took around a marsh.   That morning there was snow on the ground and gray skies above.   Blue skies delight us with dazzling shadows on the snow, but a gray sky is about subtle color and close values.  On this particular day the sky was temperamental.  Snow Squalls off in the distance cast dark blue curtains to the horizon.  The sun was not absent but veiled so it peeked in and out of the steely sky as a bit of highlight.  I did four thumbnails from the walk and decided I would do a 5x7 test painting of a vertical composition.  In the thumbnail I had the sun to the left.  As I painted I choose to move it to the right and introduce light coming in from the right so the composition would take on a zig zag pattern.  It was hard to trust the values in the foreground.  I wanted to make them lighter but then it would compete with the light in the sky.

The four thumbnails take me up to 9 total. 

  Squall  5x7 Oil

And now the thumbnails