Beautiful. You should be very pleased.
I don't know what the tutorial was, so it's hard to comment. But as it stands I will make a couple criticisms -- not because it's a bad job -- it's a really good job. It's choices I would have made differently (the instructor had given you a starting point and if this is sort of a Disney-esque background which in many cases calls for simplicity, it's the character of the format. My suggestions are more for a one off painting.):
1) The stream is too steely gray and milky opaque for my tastes. So I would have warmed it up a tad to make it feel like a stream more than a deep river. It has to be somewhat shallow, and as such some places where the bed would come to the surface, either with different size rocks and or dirt/mud, fallen logs, pussy willows (as possibilities only). But there could be more sense to the swirls and eddies that would show up in your highlights and the color you make the water in parts. What that means is that you have an opportunity to make it interesting with variations. The stream is one of the key factors in the painting, and since it draws so much attention I should think you would want it to deliver a more interesting visual that describes something more than "here's a stream". I would think it through and broaden my visual vocabulary and think in terms of dimensions and volume, not just the surface. That helps one construct an image.
2) I still have to think that your use of depth of field focus could be a little more considered. While it appears that you are using blurring to fill gaps and imply "more leaves" etc as a painting technique, there's the odd bit that hangs in the air out of focus that does not make sense visually. It looks fine behind large clusters of leaves. But when you have a blurry leaf shape hang into the middleground where the foreground and background are sharp, it's inconsistent. Not a huge problem, but it's something as the artist that you may want to own as a tool.
I love the overall painting. It's keyed nicely to the cools. I love the stuff in it. The rays of light coming in are really nice, and I can sense an intriguing story about to play out through it. As a viewer I could be walking through, or I could be an observer waiting for a dramatic scene to open up. I know you were copying, but I'm giving you my take on this as if it were entirely cooked up by you, and what the effect of this and that are, for me anyway.
We want to take you past being a copyist to the place you can make selections and enhance an image to make it sing. Technique is very important to master. But creation is there for technique to support.
Anyway, great success. Keep going, June!
Last edited by D Akey; 06-30-2016 at 06:51 AM.
"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream