Color Change

The background color of the actual scene was green.  Instead I decided to enliven the background with other colors.  First, I chose a turquoise green for the sky so that the blue of the trees wouldn't repeat the same color.  Once I decided on the blue, I went to the orange as its complement.  Then I transitioned to  warm reds and then violets.  It was all about gradation of colors while moving around the background.  I stayed with the same four colors for most of the painting.

Once the blue was there, I put the complement of orange on the mailboxes and changed over to blue again. 

I was then left with the white of the paper.  I decided to put down some neutral grays in those areas.

My point is, have a rational idea about color choices. 

 Employ a lot of wet-in-wet soft backgrounds.  It's rather like throwing your photo into depth of field and soft focus to keep your eye in the foreground.  It also keeps your eye coming back to the areas of harder edges.