Using my brush I blocked in the rocks using titanium buff (a very opaque, creamy paint) and quinacridone gold (a transparent paint which is very intense used straight from the tube and very subtle when used thinly).
I’d decided the sun would be coming from the right-hand side (as you look at the painting) which is why the tree trunk has the shading it does. (Someone who saw the painting at this stage asked who’d stolen the branches!) At this stage the rocks don’t reflect the direction of the sun, I was still just playing with rough shapes and sizes and laying in some base colour for the next stage, which would be done with a painting knife.
