Spooky forest stuff.
I live on the Olympic peninsula just a stone's throw from the Hoh rain forest. (Just kidding, it's like a 2-3 hours drive to get there. The Oly Pen is HUGE, and the Hoh is cool. The only way to get there is AROUND because other than a smattering of logging roads, there aren't many ways to get across it, maybe because there's a mountain chain.
I first saw the Hoh when I was here for the Seattle marathon over 10 years ago. We drove around the peninsula, and went for a short trail run in it, and it's this fairy mossy wonderland. Honestly, I could paint forever and never run of out subjects here.
So, a mossy, damp green wonderland of ferns and trees that look like characters in a Grimm's fairy tale. One, in particular, gets photographed a lot. It arches over the path, like a gateway. And that's the scene I was after today.
I started out with a study, using some of the leftover guache that I had from Design I class. I thoroughly hate guache, but I have decided it could be useful for studies.
I chose a 16"x20" cradled board. I didn't do anything with the sides; this will likely be framed. It was prepped with the usual Gac100 and 2 coats of gesso, followed by colored gesso, this time I added Indian Yellow to the gesso to get a nice sunny vibe. I chose this because we parts of the panel peak through, I want it to look like sunlight peaking through to the dark forest.
I never do things in the right order. You're supposed to do darks, and then lights, but because I know how painting with a palette knife feels for me, I tend to lay in shapes that will have other things on top of them first. When there's a sky, it's the first thing that gets done. 
Right at this point I was feeling a little panicky. Forests do that to me. 
Starting on the path - ugh. It looks like corpse putty. 
This was me playing with procreate on my iPad to decide how to proceed. I felt like the area of the tree above the knothole was too thin, and decided to thicken it. I also thought about putting sun spots on the path, and a little moss on the tree.
Mkay. Now I think the path is too neat. Have you seen forest paths in the PNW? They are messy. 
A little better. 
Sun and shadow patches, instead of messiness. Much better. I also darkened the arch again over path, but gave some reflected light on the left side of the trunk on the main tree. Some smattering of darks scumbled into the fern mass on the left, and I think I'm ready to call it done. 
Finished! Time to sign. I use a rubber-tipped tool now to sign my name into the wet paint. I used to use the end of a paintbrush, but this works better. 