A Breakthrough..."I think"

OK...so I'm REALLY excited! Those of you who have been reading know I have been working on loosening up a bit...I still like a lot of the way I paint, but have felt a bit stilted...SO, I was painting what I'm going to call "Lone Pine" (14'x32" canvas) the other day from my studio on the top floor of our house...looking through a window I can see a forest of pines. (The tree line was about 3/4 the way up the canvas) At first (I should have photographed it, but I hated it so much I didn't) there was just one pine amongst a bunch of other pines with very little color difference...I pulled out some depth, and really went lighter with the pine I wanted to be the focus, but it just looked like a pine that blended in with the others...nothing different. True, it looked like what I was seeing from my perspective, but I felt it was "blah"...So, I decided I wanted it to be just standing alone, so I quickly mixed sky and some other colors and began to quickly block out what I didn't want...remember this is acrylic so I can't wipe it out...

So, the breakthrough is...I really LOVE this. I know I need to do a bit more, but I like that I can see some of the dark ground from behind, and I love the soft edges I see, and I love the loose interpretation of the pine...It is still "piney", but more loose...

SO...I had to take a picture of it in process, with a close-up view and now need to decide what I need to do to clean it up just a bit...some of the strokes are just white that didn't mix in with the sky...and the top of the sky wasn't a dark ground, so if I want it to carry perhaps I need to put dark ground and go over it the same as I did the lower part of the sky.

ANYWAY...this may be almost finished. This feels like a breakthrough of a sort for me. I am going to work with more dark ground and REALLY concentrate on looser strokes...almost not thinking. I had a friend once who actually knocked the brush out of my hand when she saw I was going to do too much; more than I had described I wanted...Perhaps I need someone standing behind me to knock the brush from my hand...:) Or...just work more intuitively and stop more often...HMMM...what do you think?

Whatever comes of this, today I am excited and I wanted to share this moment...

ps...coming soon...some spring like paintings...some color and some fun objects...my dear hubby is building me a box for still life so...:) Onward and upward!

pss...I hope this doesn't mess up my desire to jury into daily painters as things may...(if I'm lucky to catch on to myself) be changing a bit...?? BUT I'M HAVING FUN!!