Learning From Paint Studies

I've started to paint studies to help focus more on the brush strokes I'm using and the colours. I've noticed recently with some of my work if i'm focusing on painting a piece of work with a new or unplanned design I tend to use a lot more brush strokes that are smaller and all layered on top of each other. This gives a very stiff and lifeless feel to my paintings and they don't really convey the feelings I want them to because their a bit dull in the end, even if they do have a potentially interesting design with in them.
My original plan was to keep jumping into artists researches and follow their methods of paintings and design thinking but I feel currently if I went down that path I wouldn't learn a great deal apart from copying the artist. So instead I want to pull back for a while and focus on some basics to help with some key features I feel look best in a piece of concept art. Two of those things that always stand out to me when looking at art is brush strokes and colour.
Personally I think the fewer brush strokes an artist can takes to convey an object the more talented they are to an extent. Also larger and more bold brushstrokes can show confidence and knowledge in the artist knowing what they're doing as they're putting down these strokes on purpose and for a reason. apposed to putting down many strokes in various shapes and colour until you land on the right one.
I feel like I have a lot to learn with colour as there's so many rules and methods in painting them. As for now with my painting studies I've just painted what feels right by planning a basic set of colours that I want to include in my painting. So far this has worked alright for me and I've found that my paintings based on studies are looking more colourful and vibrant next to previous works.
I got the idea to focus on these study paintings by an artist named John j park who also uses them to help with brush efficiency and goes into detail about this in a tutorial I bought from Gumroad. He mentions how it's important not to completely copy the key reference object in every detail but to choose a few parts to hint at the detail to make a nice graphic read of the object.     

 
Personally I felt as though my first attempt wasn't so great. As I was painting this I was getting tied down by focusing on smaller areas of the image and scratching away at certain bit falling into the same habits as I regularly do and it shows. I was to bust zoomed in trying and failing to get bits to look nice that I hadn't properly stepped back and noticed how dull the colours were or how visually dull it looked. What made it worse was that I knew how many times I'd painted over the same patch of grass or sky aswell so I knew I wasn't achieving my goal. As my task was to keep it loose and use fewer brush strokes I already knew that this piece would be classed as a 'learning experience piece' (aka I messed up) and decided to leave it at that and start anew.

So I went home and instead of sulking about it I tried again but this time I decided to paint with two reference images on my screen to aid me with my visuals/design in hopes that it would take pressure away from having to plan the layout of my painting, therefore I could put more concentration into the brush strokes and colours I was using.

   
Here's the outcome. I felt as though I'd taken a step in the right direction using this method of studying. Doing this I'm able to bring out a lot more vibrant colours in my work and knowing what my subject matter is I can use less brush strokes to get it down. Although taking my time to think about what brush strokes to put down and why, I was able to complete this image in half the time it took me to paint my previous failed attempt the same day. 
I started this painting differently aswell. Instead of looking at a plain white canvas to start with I used the pattern stamp took and painted out a mess of colours all over the canvas that I wanted to appear in my painting. I then had a very rough sketch of the basic shapes wanted in this piece such as the hills tree line and geyser. I then built the rest up with larger brush strokes and worked into smaller ones when adding in hints of detail towards the end such as the ground.

On the same night I also painted this piece. I aimed to hurry up the piece yet again. Although I don't dislike this piece I don't love it. After the vibrancy and brush efficiency of the geyser piece this one fell short. It's not as vibrant and I could feel myself struggling slightly with the vegetation as I was starting to overlay to many layers of paint but stopped myself before it could be classed as too late.
There's not really anything eye locking in this piece aswell. Although it's not my main goal with these studies to focus on composition and creating a strong focal point it really does help to make the image pop and after looking at the two pieces I think having a strong focal point to paint on can help with colour decisions.
I knew after this piece that my future studies would need a key focal area to help with colours and brush strokes.

 
 The next day I decided to create a piece that would begin to challenge myself with a new task that I don't feel 100% confident with I wanted to paint a beach with a wet surface that became reflective. I don't believe that this goal was successful however I did manage to paint the subject with more vibrant colours than normal and overall completed it with few brush strokes that were thought through.

 
My new challenge along with focusing on colour and the brush strokes as normal was to see if I could be as confident/efficient while painting a man made object. In this case a radio tower. At first I had a few goes at painting the main tower that weren't working overly well. So I remembered the art of Sparth. Another artist who is very efficient and quick at painting however he mainly focuses on scifi meaning his method could possibly work for a man made object such as a radio tower. I feel like it did and that I managed to make it blend well with the more painterly style.
I think this piece has been my most successful in terms of colour and brush size diversity. While still limiting my brush strokes I believe I was able to place down a range of vibrant colours that compliment each other and establish a mood. The brush strokes that were used to do so are a variety of sizes and directions. I like to limit myself to only a few brushes when doing these studies I've found as it's yet another thing that I can not have distracting me from my main goal. therefore I've started rotating and smudging some of my brush strokes to get the desired effect. I think doing this has also helped bring out a more painterly style in this study.

As of now I'm aiming to get alot more of this type of work done before jumping into work that is considered to be more heavily 'game art' as I feel focusing on these main aspects of a painting and getting to grips with it by learning about it will help my work in the future. I hope that once I do get back into creating environment art for games I can bring a new knowledge of colour and brush efficiency along with it to really help create some standout pieces of work that are filled with energy, vibrancy and atmosphere.