From Brush Canyon

Once the underpainting was completed, the focus became developing the background to insure the right level of value contrast between it and the foreground.

The atmospheric perspective in this composition was not meant to suggest a great distance.  Because there is a limit to the values you are able to express with paint it was important to establish one end of the value continuum within the painting so that there was a reference point for all the other value decisions in the painting.

Once the overall value of the hills in the background were established, I moved onto the values in the middle ground.  There I focused on establishing the value range within these masses.  The need was to insure the values between the middle ground and the background was correct as well as the values within the middle ground.