The colors felt too intense and bright, so I added quite a few more tree trunks, then applied a glaze of raw umber across the whole painting to dull it down (Photo 1). On assessment, I decided I'd overdone it, so tentatively added some cadmium orange and yellow green (Photo 2).
Then I decided to stop hedging around and just go for it, so got painting with the quinacridone burnt orange (Photos 3 and 4). I knew I would repaint the tree trunks somewhat, so wasn't overly careful not to paint over them with the orange. (Besides, having a background that appears painted around objects is one of the easiest ways to ruin a painting!)
This is also the stage where I changed the composition. I shortened the tree in the left-hand corner because the three tree trunks in a row felt wrong, too dominant. (It also meant that I had three tree trunks going off the bottom edge of the painting, fulfilling the composition 'rule' that odd numbers are better than even.
