"Hare Trigger" step by step 4

Hare Trigger, step 4, 60X40"

Hi Everybody,
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and have sufficiently recovered. I've had to do a bit of art show related traveling and have been away from my easel for too long. But I'm back now and have taken the next step on our painting. This is actually two days of work. I didn't post after the first day because I was working to lay everything in and with the light effect of all the dust and running rabbit, it wouldn't have made any sense to you to show you until I had it all down and relating to each other. This is a pretty good sized canvas and it takes longer than a single day to get your things laid in. Something that slipped my mind when I started this step by step.

So, where are we now. Well, I have the prickly pear, rabbit and dust laid in. But I put it in a little darker than some of it will end up being. A lot of my time was spent in making the prickly pear appear to be partially obscured by the layer of dust the horse is kicking up. In the next step, besides putting the rest of the saddle and cowboy's boot in, I will be going into the foreground to add colors and bouncing light into the cactus and dust layer. I want to lighten it a bit, but not so much that the painting feels top heavy. Remember that it's always better to go from dark to light with oil paints... thin to thick. But for the top dust layer I'll be scumbling on the paint. Scumbling is just a way of saying I'll be adding lighter paint by dry brushing it on over the existing layer of dry paint. If done right, it's a very convincing way of painting dust and making adjustments. Also, I'll continue to add the cactus spines to make it the place the cowboy does not want to end up. As I'm looking at it, I'm feeling that I need to add a few paddles to the cactus that are coming toward the viewer to make it more of a 3D effect. I will be adding a few rocks and twigs in the foreground being kicked up by the bolting hare. Also, it's time to get the light effect around the rabbit perfected. Right now it's a bit dark. I want it to pop a bit more.