Listen to your paintings

I've always heard this, it's just that my paintings weren't talking, or maybe I just wasn't listening. Recently, when I hit troubling passages instead of wrestling it to the ground, I've heard the painting say "walk away"

Today I started a pastel based on the oil study I did in Amesbury on Thursday.  I wanted it light, ethereal, moody and overcast.  I kept the underpainting light and was happy with the alcohol wash. I did the trees first to lock them in following the advise on Liz Haywood Sullivan's video "Mixing Greens"

It didn't start to go wrong until the block-in when I started to place my dark and medium greens. I had to leave, family errands called including a trip to the dump.  On the way home I heard the painting say " too soon with the greens, keep the block-in violet and purple in tone.

I brushed out the greens, as much as I could, and added dark and mid purples, violets and mauves for my block-in. I think it is going to be ok, I'll work more on it tomorrow.

underpainting using pinks and purples

wash-in, I lost a lot of the darks

block-in after brushing out the too deep greens and replacing them with violets and purples