Winter Landscape

There are some things I’m trying to figure out with the painting.   A friend asked me to paint a winter scene with a red barn in a snowy landscape.  She found an image that she really likes and asked if I would paint it for her, and I did.  The thing is, it was just the red barn surround by white snow and white sky and really nothing else.  In a small photo I think it all looked nice but in a 18X24″ painting it was a little too stark and not that great.  So I’ve introduced some trees and a hill back there.  It’s not finished, I have painted the barn but I’m mostly focused on creating some sort of interesting space around the barn.  I’d like to introduce some other subtle shades of gray, grayish yellow, and whatnot.  I’m sure this will evolve into something different as I go through the process of trying different things.