This photo does not show the edges of the painting as I didn't want to show the distortions due to the curve of the paper.
My method, when using Arches 640gsm paper, is to do the painting without first wetting the paper. This results in the effect that, whilst I work, the area that I am painting on shrinks a little, and the outside area does not. Once I have completed the work, I wet the reverse side of the paper with demineralised water, which causes an even shrinkage over the entire piece correcting the curves in the paper.
I have worked in this session just in the upper middle of the work.

The forest is still growing denser. Much work still to do.

The painting is beginning to get the denseness of the rainforest, but it will need more contrast in some areas yet, before I am satisfied.
I am disappointed with the lighter palm leaves that are intermingled with the ficus leaves, as they do not have the lit quality that I had intended.
I suppose  there will always be some aspects of my work that will not completely satisfy me. Such is the life of an artist who sees 'too much' detail!!

A distance is now beginning to be more enhanced on the pathway. More leaf texture has been added to the left section. This will be a lighter area with the thin saplings dark against the more sunlit background.
A rainforest is more like an 'enchanted wood' to me and this is the feel that I want to ultimately convey.
As I am painting on a dull rainy day, I have the LED lights on, and this gives the photo a more 'yellow' tone than the last one which was taken in a brighter daylight, which has a blue bias.

With more form and leaf texture, it is beginning to get a rainforest 'feel'. The background to the right will be quite dark with highlighted 'lit' areas to the left and top with some sky.
Whilst my last rainforest painting was quite large and had imposing trees also it didn't give the dark, dank, feel of the environment.
I do want a filtered light to be across the well trodden path, and I'm not sure yet if I am going to leave the 'pink' earth colour of warm it up to be more brown earth. I shall decide just before I finish the work.

I have suspended my personal goal to paint a still life in oils, to work on a watercolour of the  neighbourhood rainforest. A client expressed an interest in seeing one, which may result in a sale of the work.
I have completed a very large similar painting in the past, but it is too large for the average home even though it is greatly admired by most who see it. This one is smaller and, of course a different composition.
The trees in the foreground are quite dark in contrast to the background, but this is intentional so as to create the atmosphere that I seek in the work.