Procedure

When you have an interesting idea for a painting, and then do a good drawing, there's still the matter of executing the painting.  How to procede and what order to paint things becomes a big part of how the painting will turn out.

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to procedure.  With the values, I paint from light to midtone to darks.  In many cases that means painting the sky, the far distance, the middle distance and the near areas in that order.  With color, I usually choose cool neutrals in the distance, and as I work forward, I warm things up a bit.  But colors are usually grayed somewhat no matter how close they are, unless I want to attract your eye to a particular object, in which case I use a purer color.

Here's the drawing of the painting I'm going to paint this afternoon.  I'm posting it first to give you a chance to think about what your procedure and color choices might be.  An instructor can show you what she does, but that is never a substitute for thinking out what your procedure will be once you're on your own with your own subject matter.