Dancing Mangroves

Wednesday's plein aire was at at Matanzas Preserve on the bay by Fort Myers Beach.  There are lots of mangroves.  I love the way the mangrove limbs snake this way and that.  But they are difficult to paint.  When you look, you see layers of layers of sunlit branches.  I painted the leaves first, then I painted negative darks behind the leaves leaving lots of white paper that represented the light I was seeing.  Then I tinted those whites with various soft colors.

Watercolor  14 X 11