Custer State Park, South Dakota

Next up in my Dakota series of painting efforts will be something roughly based on the photo below. This scene is typical of the gently rolling grassland hills that dominate the southern part of the park.

Custer State Park, July 31, 2011

This scene doesn't make for the greatest painting composition, so after I painted a first effort at this, I sat back, looked at it, and knew something was missing. On the one hand, what I had done was a pretty faithful representation of the picture. But on the other hand, faithfully reproducing a photo doesn't always make for the best painting.

So I went back to the photos from the rest of this particular hike, and found this:

Custer State Park, flowers in the valley

To make a more interesting composition, I added some of these lavender and yellow flowers in the foreground. And added another clump of trees in the right mid-ground to balance the trees in the left distance. The new trees are only roughed in, and will require some additional work, as they are closer to the foreground and won't end up quite as...vague.

After the first batch of changes (bad lighting)

This might not be a faithful copy of the original photo, but it does capture the essence of this hike and the landscape of the park, and makes for a far more interesting painting composition. There is a lesson to be learned here...

Something still didn't seem quite right though, mainly in the lower left part of the composition. So I added the first rough-in of a clump of bushes running down the swale between the hills. Better I think.

Second batch of changes (better lighting)

The newer trees and bushes still need work, but it seems to be getting closer to a better painting.

That being said, I'm also reaching the point where I need to wrap this up and move on to the next one...