Remember I said that working on the mid-values is a step to making a good painting better? The mid values are my largest area of the canvas, and those middle values play subordinate rolls to both the darks and especially the lights. In this image (bluish glare on upper right, sorry) you can see that I have taken the larger areas laid in, and made each of them more interesting to the viewer, without leaving the value range of that area. "Embellishing the big shapes".
This part of the painting process takes about as long as the final details--I just use bigger brushes! When I eventually DO get to the details of the water and the two riders, I'll use smaller brushes, and more pure color. I will also break the rules on warm/cool, putting some warms in the shadowed figures to really make them jump out at you. The reason I choose to do this is the figures are also middle value, and I have to contrast them from the major part of the painting, and I can only use purity of color and/or switching the palettes (using warm in a shadowed area) to really catch your eye.
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