Hey All!
Ok, so I'd undertaken something I consider a real challenge to do - a matte that is essentially landscape - without props/structures etc. to rely on for compositional devices. I was envisioning an upscale car commercial as I worked on it...
I started with the plate attached, did a sketch over that without any photo reference, but having immersed myself in Hudson River school artists like Bierstadt and Church to gain their insights - pools of light and all. (sketch was two evenings work - one to start it, second to rework it all - anyone else like that?)
Then went looking for reference images:(
Ok, so that adds to the challenge - getting good reference for everything. I'm not sure how many images I have in there ultimately (45+), but it meant a lot of painting with the 1 pixel brushes to get the piece to pull together. (matte working time around 4-5 days now).
plate:

sketch: