"Fall" Work In Progess, part 2

I decided after transferring the drawing to a large board that I needed some more elements like birds and blowing leaves. So on a separate piece of tracing paper I drew out some leaves and birds, then transferred them to the drawing using Saral Wax Free transfer paper.

Btw, I highly recommend Saral brand Wax Free transfer paper. I've been using it for years - I discovered it back when I painted background environments for Lucky Charms and Trix cereal commercials. I needed a way to transfer the layout drawings very accurately on to a board before I began painting. I initially used regular transfer paper but quickly learned that the waxy surface of the transferred lines resist paint.

After I finished the transfer and was happy with the drawing, I moved on to a value sketch and a color sketch. The light pattern in this painting is important in portraying a sense of mood and time of year in this series, so I felt it necessary to fully work out a value sketch before jumping into the final. The planes here are simple: Foreground, Midground, and Background (sky), which are painted in three separate layers on top of my line drawing in Photoshop.After I spent some time experimenting with shadow patterns and values, I messed around with a color scheme, which I painted in new layers on top of the value sketch. I decided on mixtures of three hues: yellow, orange and lavender. I also kept the color very saturated in the foreground to reflect a certain emotional tone I am aiming for in this series.
This is a rough color sketch, so i omitted any details, wanting to concentrate only on the color scheme and figuring out my palette. To go any further would not serve me well because I would burn out on the idea and not feel as excited about finishing the final.

Next, I'll begin on the final painting. I will post the next steps as soon as I can!