Still I'm practising

Evening at lake with dead tree stump'. I did not reach a really coloured calm water surface. Whatever I had tried, it stayed for my intention too troubled. Now I decided to finish it. But I am sure there are some who have advices and hints how to make it better the next time. The most important for me is to learn to keep the paints into a for me still unfamiliar sequence, the mixture of colours....
I tried to place an attachment of the in Art-Rage painted picture, here and under critique, it did not work, now I gave up
But no, I pondered and assumed: The picture is too big, tried again an it appeared.
I cannot paint picture on screen in a smaller size because of my eyes and have to size them down first.

Glad to see you finally managed to post an image of your painting!:cool::cool::cool:
Yes, there is a max size in KB’s that the site will accept. So it’s always a bit of balancing act between small enough file size and the resulting image quality.

But, getting back to your painting; are you a fan of Edvard Munch by any chance? This has a very similar style and feel about it to some of his work.
Compositionally I think it works well and the tree branches lead nicely into the background hills.
Though for me those dark trees on the left are getting a little too lost perhaps against the hills?

You say that you think the water is not as smooth as you wanted, correct?
Well I think the “trick” for painting placid water is economy of brush strokes.
Although the linked video is done in real media the basic approach will also work in ARV. (Painting the water starts approximately 3min into the video).
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Dsn9BxTe4
As per the video this could all be done on one layer in ARV.
But one could also separate things out to different layers for more editorial control if one wanted to.
For example in ARV you could arrange the layers as;
Layer 1: Gradient background colour.
Layer 2: Dark shadow areas of waves.
Layer 3: Light areas of waves.
Layer 4: White highlights.
Layer 5: Yellow highlights.

As for mixing colours, in the digital world I think it really dose come down to personal preference.
Me, I’m perfectly happy just choosing from the colour wheel in any paint program and rarely deliberately try to mixup specific colours.
Why, well;
1: So far I’ve yet to find a digital painting program that gets the mixing of colours to work exactly as they would in the real world 100% of the time.
2: Traditionally in the real world we had to mix our own wet colours as no paint suppler could provide every possible colour shade and tint one might ever need!
But that real world limitation doesn’t really exist digitally. And it just slows the painting process down for me.
Now having said all that I know there are many digital artists out there coming from a traditional background that do like mixing their own colours.
For them it’s as much a part of the painting process as actually putting paint to canvas!

Now whilst I might not like mixing my own initial colours to paint with, I do like ARV’s ‘Real Colour Blending’ feature, and how it lets paint colours interact on the canvas while painting.
But again it doesn’t always respond as real media would. And I’m often turning it On/Off as I paint in order to curb it’s sometimes more outrageous results!
It may not be perfect but I wouldn’t like ARV without it!

Thanks Mark, for such a long and detailed answer. I read it all an will again for special hints. It encourages me a lot! Because I'm feeling: I am on the right way. Only: Not fearing to make mistakes to fail but not hesitating to show here!
An oh no, it's not that I ever was intented to paint like Edvard Munch.
I do not have a special or favourite painter I want to do like him. I take interesting and crucial details from the most.
I want to discover peculiar ideas.
Did you ever watch carefully the famous paint from Tischbein? "Goehte in Italy?
The portrait is so fine. But if you compare it with the legs....
Well one leg which is covered with a blanket is soooo huge, Goethe had to be a giant:-) Visiting here in Weimar some pictures of Tischbein: He was an excellent painter of portraits, faces but not of the body, of proportions of bodies, hands.
The female painter Angelika Kaufmann was a wonderful classical painter, her hands and fingers, her painted bodies are so fine. We have them here pictures here temporarily (if they are not lent to museums somewhere) I always need a long time to watch the details.
In "Schloß Friedenstein" in Gotha there are her pictures to. I mean...On Friedenstein are a lot of the Cranachs. The style is different but the could paint fine hands, but the fingernails are black:-)
If you ever come to visit Germany again: Come to Thuringia, it is full of castles and full of Museums, alone her in Weimar. The next from our home is a small castle of the Duchesse Anna Amalia: Schloß Tiefurt with a small exibition. 200 m just a jump over the church-yard...
It's so interesting to watch galeries, museums.
But I myself love Surrealism, really. But to come to do that in a convincing style I did not yet reach.
I like to paint more or less untidy, but detailed, a little bit rotten stuff, not perfect but correct in terms of anatomy and details. The buildings a little bit run down.
Peculiars things, dead things, broken things.
To come to Munch. if I have a look at his famous picture the "Cry (The Scream?) " I tend to step in a distance from my inner.
Even to "daddel" it by "Happy Colot" (I often use to relaxe for a short time on our iPad) I was reluctant to do it. But did it to be brave an discovered why:
I saw and heard so many poeple and animals cry in agony, tortured by pain, while dying and this also something out of my childhood, when I was a little girl of almost 5.
On my more kitschy mood I love to paint sunset- sun risings, sea-shore, waves. I am not so style-sticked.
But the wheel is to get accustomed to for me. I still miss the ochre-shades. But hesitate them to take them from an offer here in ARV.
A water coloured painting of Schloß Tiefurt from the back-side from a view-point which nobody can really catch because there is a wall. The walls are not quite rectangle in reality I exaggerated all a little bit.
And one of "Fuerte Venture" in a very plain restaurant after a family had left there family-meal-meeting, called: "Gegessen" Tempera.
I made a photo of it but had to change the scene a little bit, make it less detailed when I painted it.
And the dove crushed from a storm on the sea-shore; Ad Astra (Oil)
I lay into the wet sand even my head pressed into the sand, when I made the photo. But do you recognize the lily-pistil in the middle of the feathers?
The sea is the Orion-Horse-Head-Fog from an old postcard which was one of the first photos of the Horse-Head-Fog of the Orion: Ad Astra, the empty eye from the dove looks already into it.
Because I first tried to paint the sea-breakers that was boring and I had the inspiration of this sky-phenomena we are only able to watch as a star gazer (I had once watch it).
Hope this works. Once I will get advanced here I will take them in here and change them for the gallery.
And concerning my eyes: I have on one eye a severe wet "macula degeneration" which is treated to stop at least by injections each 2 month, but causes lost of sight thought but slowly, but colours too. No, it does not hurt and one eye is still ok. But now here on ARV I am not longer depending on ideal-light-conditions.
That is a great advantage.
Kind regarads, your LaFemmeDuLac

Dear Mark,
sorry, I did not react on this below:

'Compositionally I think it works well and the tree branches lead nicely into the background hills.
Though for me those dark trees on the left are getting a little too lost perhaps against the hills?

You say that you think the water is not as smooth as you wanted, correct?'

I first pondered and took several looks on my printed (DIN A 4), then my folder by ARV and then the picture here.
As I know: Every transformation takes pixels away despite from the analog photographs. And it changes the colours. Often in a positive way.
But one reason is what I mentioned: AMD on my eye where I already lost some colours and the shapes of all I can see with that eye are, to take it with humour, very peculiar sight that I have often spontaneously.
I can compensate it with my left eye but that made me stopping painting with colours, the results seemed to me the last two years to unsatisfying, colours to much, everything tends to become to thin...
My professor who made new lenses into my eyes and takes the injections is always urging me, to paint, to train my sight. Because he claims: Sight is a questions of intelligence and a matter of the brain. Training of seeing is important, wearing of glasses as well (I just cannot read without glasses).
This eye has still with very high special glass 30% sight.
But you cannot imagine how astonishing I can change totally deformed seen lines and forms after saying to myself: That is not possible, the lines are getting straight,,
But please, no pity! I have great luck, 35 years ago when it started there was not therapie at all. I would be almost blind now. And it does not hurt!
What I want to say: I will all works I see for more or less important put into this thread first. For critics. Because when I pondered about your very polite critic I realized: The mistakes is e. g., not only in the too light sky. My intention was to illustrate the green beams I'm watching always near Leipzig during sunsets. But I did not catch that like I wanted. There must be more darkness.
and the mountains, well there hat to be one or more very thin layers over of turquoise or so. But that did not work;-)
However, I first will leave that like it is. And take it later again, being more experienced and try to improve it, or do a fotograph the next time we will drive through this flat landscapes in to the falling dark in order to paint something different with those special green beams.
Thanks for reading and taking care. Yours LaFemmeDuLac