Uplfting

 This painting ended up being a real challenge and full of surprises, but I like  the outcome. I loved the mountain in my cropped reference photo but thought it needed more defined trees ( shapes ) on the bottom and maybe some reflective water, so I chose another reference photo. The mountains came together quite quickly but when I added the autumn trees and water, something was not right. I changed the color of the trees, the back hills and still it wasn't working for me. I made the trees larger and eliminated the water...nope that didn't work either. I brought back the water and took away the trees.  At this point, before I added the trees again, it finally dawned on me. I had too much going on in the painting and needed to simplify. I had accumulated a lot of texture and layers from scrapping and such and was really liking the effect ... I managed to make trees without painting them! Time to simplify. I still needed to connect the top and the bottom. Just a couple of autumn trees did the trick and I was happy with the mood.

Here are the two enhanced reference photos and my painting ,acrylic 15 x 30 inches