I had a nice long session in the studio today!  Working mainly on the leaves and foreground but blocked in the jackets too.  I like to work all over the canvas so that the whole gradually builds up.  I tend to leave the face and hair until later.  The trick of achieving a feeling of distance is to paint the leaves in perspective, reducing in size from the foreground to the background.  Another important aspect of achieving distance is also to make the concrete path in the foreground darker and then lighten gradually until the top of the canvas is reached.  The path is still a work in progress along with the rest of the painting - many layers and details to be added yet!All of these comments could be quite annoying to a seasoned artist and so I apologise to those of you who think that it is all perfectly obvious.