I started to play around with paths in the sky to see what kinds of effects I could use to make a sky and before long, I added a water line and decided to make moon reflecting in the water. I used some my
small cloud brushes to make the ripples. then made some Heron brushes and ended up with this painting. feed back always welcome.

WOW Molly they are sublime images and I love them. I must learn a lot more about brush techniques and how you do this.

I also love your heron brushes too, but am a bit cagey about using them - we have a 'friendly' white necked heron that keeps coming down to our garden to raid our fish pond!.

Thank you OMG.... glad you like it. You could always turn these brushes into white ones then you will be right at home. Herons are very good at fishing in shallow waters, fish don't stand a chance.

I am also glad that MyPaint brushes will be made available in Gimp soon. I'd love to learn how to paint better.

Cheers.

Joseph

What a beautiful painting Molly!

Thank you Erisian... @josephbupe, why don't you download MyPaint, it works very well with Gimp, and you can go back and forth between the two.

After getting some helpful feed back from a friend I changed some of the features in my Heron pic. I added some texture to the moon, I then brightened the water to give it more separation from the sky. I added some more light colors to the division between the sky and water which also seems to help. Here is my final edit in this picture.

Nice one Molly.

I see the changes you made and it looks really nice Molly.

Thank you Odin and Wallace. I appreciate your comments.

You're welcome Molly.

Since Spring is finally here I thought I would try my luck at painting a spring scene.
Comments welcome, but please be kind...

nice painting, Molly!
I like it, and I derived my "personal" aquarel on paper....(thru gimp)

Nice one Molly.
The only thing I see that might need adjustment is a lighter shade for the dark pink or maybe a blur?

Nice Molly.
It dose seems to me that there's something missing in the background. Of what looks like to be empty space.

Thanks dinasset, Odin and Wallace,
What would you suggest Wallace?

I thought that too about the pink too Odin, I did try to dull them down but I think they are still too bright.

No problem Molly.

I did a little work on your image. To help give the background more interest.

I added a layer mask to remove the part of the background, that I thought could use some improvement.
BTW... I think your birds are really nice.

Thank you Wallace, that looks really nice. I was going to do something like that I didn't know how to go about painting around all those trees and flowers. I don't have all the layers anymore so couldn't separate the sky.
So, do I just add a layer mask and paint out the trees? Not sure if I know how to do that but I will try.

BTW, the birds are the easiest part.

All the individual things look good, but together it seems to be a bit hard to differentiate the different elements. I think it could use some shadows to make the different elements pop!

Thanks Moko, I guess the reason I didn't use any shadows is due to the sky being so drab with no distinct light coming from any direction. You are right about the elements not standing out which makes everything look flat.