How long did it take to do that?

Every artist has heard this question, repeatedly.  The painting I'm posting today is a good example of why that questions is meaningless.

                                       

The first thing I did was paint the sky as it is here, and  paint the foreground a very deep purple.  I did not know where I was going with this, so I spent the next week looking at it in the studio.  I eventually decided on the background trees and painted them in place.  Once again, days went by with me just looking, before deciding on the color and mood of the foreground, as it is now.  What to do next?  After over a week of bouncing back and forth between a solitary bare tree and no solitary bare tree, I made the choice.

 

And I had this to look at for several more days before deciding I was not happy with what I saw.
The tree was lacking, and the foreground and treeline on the right was too static.  The solution was several glazes of "sky color" on the treeline and the adjacent foreground, plus some adjustment in the color of the single tree.

The completed painting as of this morning.

Roiled Sky, acrylic on canvas...24x48"

The actual painting time was just a fraction of the total time it took to complete this pieca.