Couldn't Leave It Alone

I got the borders made and sewn on the third Smoky Mountain piece (there will be a tutorial about this process coming up soon). It was on my design wall for a few days hanging with the first two along with my reference photo. While sorting the heap of scraps on my studio floor into separate bags ... one for lake quilts, another for future mountain pieces, plus a pile of the larger pieces for scrap blocks to make charity quilts ...I studied and compared.
I couldn't leave it alone! Each day I was less enamored with just letting the fabric tell the whole story. Compared to the first two versions it was looking like a "paint by number" piece.

Sugarlands Overlook (14"x 14")

I just had to get out the oil stick pastels and watercolor pencils to shade hard edges and add fall colors to the trees in the mountains. Who knows? I may not be finished with touching it up yet.

I feel a need to get into the Smoky Mountains before continuing this series, which will happen in less than a month. In the meantime, it will be back to creating lake quilts while I'm living on the shore of my subject. Between pieces I'll continue to make blocks from the pile of larger scraps