"Maverick" Just Keeps Rolling Along

I was dragging yesterday afternoon, after my podiatrist appointment where he squeezed and prodded my foot to figure out where the problem was and also to back up his theory that it's a neuroma, so I wasn't chomping at the bit to get up to the studio and paint. Some days are like that but, fortunately, I know that once I get the lid off the paints and start mixing colors I will be totally immersed until Riley rouses me for some dinner. She's a good doggy that way. I'd been having issues with the flatness of the painting and knew that it probably was a matter of working on the background first to get the values better, more accurate for the lighting. The flatness was a style of painting that I didn't think would go well in the home it was going to. I tried using my painting knife on the grass, but didn't like the effect, so went back to the paintbrush. It's been a bit since I've done an entire painting with brushes, but it looks like this one is it. Funny thing about brushes and their effect on canvas, I realized that I was having one hellova time photographing this painting today because the light kept bouncing off the brushstrokes. I don't have that problem half as much when I use painting knives. So, I worked on the background and made some adjustments to Maverick's stance, then reworked nearly all of his fur so that the values were good and he wasn't so splotchy...no matter how cool the colors were. I'm at an in-between stage where everything is cooking but it needs some spice, a little "Bam!" to kick it up a notch. I imagine that there will be additional colors brought into the background so that it's not a sea of greens. But not so much as it competes with Maverick for attention.