Midgard - stage 1

"Midgard" may or maybe isn't a working title for this picture. It is a landscape in the tradition of Albert Bierstadt, the Hudson River School and Eugen Bracht; dramatically lit with ever-receding mountains and cloud with a Viking boat drawn up to shore in the foreground. It is based on the landscape of the Lofoten Islands in Norway, hence the title (Midgard is the land of men in Norse mythology, or Middle-Earth as Tolkein called it) and the Viking boat. This tonal underpainting was put in with a rag using a mixture of Burnt Sienna and Dioxazine Purple thinned with Liquin and turpentine.