Looks like a lake...

These four are falling into place. Things are going way too smoothly. Disaster must be right around the corner. Looking like a lake. Or should I say 4 lakes or different views of the same lake.

They look like some of those lakes near where my mother lives, South East of Conro and Huntsville, Texas. I am not sure why but many people call that area East Texas. To me East Texas is the area where I was born, Paris, Texas, and then south and west to the Texas-Louisiana border as far as Beaumont.

The area near Conro and Huntsville does host several lush national forests spotted with small and intimate lakes. These paintings look like one of those lakes to me.

What I have done, sample on your right, is just work in a distant tree line with my sky mix tinged by Burnt Sienna. The same mixture established the shoreline, as nebulous as it is.

I am beginning to feel the paintings are of early morning and I am keeping the colors quite muted, grayed out, by continuing to mix new hues from the left over old one that I have just completed working with. If they get so muddy they are unusable, then I kept a reserve of the sky blue and can just mix more.

Even in the early morning, the lake water would reflect - just not to the harsh degree of midday. I am being careful when I add to the bank's foliage that I repeat it in reflection. And I don't get hung up on repeating it exactly, just an impression of the original.

Next stage is a darkening of the land mass away from any edge to give the land bulk and form but hopefully not loose the early morning feel.

Hopefully, however, the early morning light will continue to develop because that is my goal. However, sometimes the painting takes over and pushes in directions that I have not dreamed of.