Ian recommends preparatory tonal pencil drawing to focus on compositional elements. In my haste, I thought I could dispense with that stage, but now I'm not so sure. It was a blustery day so the shadows and shapes shifted considerably from my first mapping of greys with a wide brush. I struggled with the various shades of green, but found that adding pinks, blues and purples helped to establish what was close and what was distant. I underestimated the amount of lemon yellow I'd need, and overestimated the amount of black. I don't like waste.
It was only after I'd finished that I realised the patterns of brush strokes that worked - and the areas that I was interested in - the half-light on the tree trunk, the light. Learning seems to involve steps backwards as well as forwards - a kind of shuffle.