How the swing in mountains was made

This painting started as a landscape, based on Alps and a valley with a river flowing across it.

As it progressed I got my usual itch to have a meaning for the painting which will go beyond the beautiful nature as it made me feel a little melancholy but there was no contextual reason to feel like this so I added it. Link to high quality photo is here.

As always: Half the meaning comes from me, half from you

The process in steps:

Fist I created the sky and the reflection.
Once dry, I added the first layer of the mountains and the cloudsAnd then after a short drying timne, completed the mountains.

You might notice that there are more mountains here when compared to the eventual end product.
I paint from back to front, in most cases with all layers painted over the whole painting. For this one I knew where the hills will go so there was no need to paint moutains all the way down and it would also create a problem for the bright spot in the middle.

The mountains were done with pallete kniefe first and a brush later.

Then I painted in the hills and the light. The trees were a treat as i used a texture approach towards creating them so the forrest is a bit 3d when you look closely

The foreground grass was done randomly as I would add bushes over it and then it would make sense to be without a texture as proportions dictate it.

The river is actully 2 rivers merging on the left side. As I added more details, this became less obvious.

The wall took as much time as everything before it. Structured patterns take a lot of time, every time.

Small details

Here the light is dimmer and the trees behind the wall have a bit of a shadow

The mountains are reflected in the water. This was a place where i had to decide if the water is turbulent or still. Still water is contained which adds to the whole meaning of what happens before the wall compared to the wilderness behind it.

The barb wire took a bit of figuring out. I wanted it to be obvious only on second look but also its is easy to make sucha thing to become so abstract it would be impossible to interpret it. This is why it is biggern that it wold be in real life and reflects a lot more light that in should. When it had no reflections it was not abvious or noticable. This is an 80x80 painting so small details can get lost if not emphasized intentionally.

The wood was a great way to contextualize light and the time of the day at the same time. Without it, it's after noon, with it - its almost golden hour but not quite.

Left side is in shadows so less light is reflected from brab wire and the top of the wall has shadows from the trees too. The darker grass at the bottom can take the credit for making the whole picture deep in perspective.

Ropes are hard to paint, for me in the future I would say: use metal cables as reference and only change color. This rope works too but its definately one of the weakest parts of the image.

Full swing is complete.

And this is where the littel paper airplane comes from. If you look at the image it has all the parts but they are not working together.

For me, the question of "who is this swing for?" is still not answered. Also, is it just dangling there abandoned? I felt that it is not so there was a need to add presense with melancholy to it. There were a few ideas but the paper airplane was easy to understand and it is timeless which makes the message of the painting work for viewers of all ages withouy being period specific. Simple element with complex emotions is a big win.

The angle fo the plane is intentional. It makes the viewer move a bit closer to the painting to confirm that the first impression is correct. I hope it works on others as it worked on me. Every time I looked at the paionting I moved one step closer to look at it.

The end result can be seen in a separate post

Beard for scale.

Overall, I'm very pleased with it and the new owners were emotional about it when they saw it. I don't know what it means for them but for me it is full of feelling and meaning and beauty.