Background: I started with a piece of tracing paper to decide how I wanted my background. I set the tracing paper over the truck, then experimented. Doing it on tracing paper lets you see if you have the perspective correct before committing it to the paper. To find my horizon line I tried to figure out where my eye level on the truck would be....probably around the level of the medallion on the hood. Since all the background elements are made up, I needed to be sure if I put in a building, animals, or other items that they fit the angle and perspective of the truck. So decide where you want to put things on your tracing paper first.
Also decide the placement of your elements. Try to avoid lining up hills, trees, or fences with horizontal lines in the truck. In other words, don't end a hill at the roof or other line in the truck. Also, choose colors that will enhance the truck, not fight it for attention. Don't paint a value that is too close to the value of the truck.
I did a wash of cerulean for the sky, pulling out some faint clouds with a large, thirsty brush. Then I put some faint golden hills beneath the sky, and some dulled green trees in faintly under the hills. Think about aerial perspective. The farther back your trees, hills, etc., the duller in color and less detailed they will be. I put in a faint pond on a dull green field and added some fence posts.
For the foreground, I drybrushed some burnts sienna, leaving some white spots. While wet I spattered some burnt sienna, red, and greens. Then when it dried I spattered some more to create the feeling of gravel. Then I added some grasses poking through the gravel. Make sure to have some shadow underneath the back tires so they don't lok like they are floating in air.
A word of caution on backgrounds. Don't just add something because it's in the reference or because you think it would look good. If it doesn't add to the composition, then don't put it in. Or put it in a different place. On a small picture like this, only add what is going to improve the composition or the feeling you are trying to convey.
DETAILS: I removed all miskit. To get the rust on the white painted grill, I softened the paint in the dark areas above each grill piece and pulled some of it out onto the white to dull the white. If it needed rust, I added some lunar earth or burnt sienna/French ultramarine.
I added rust to the bars over the rectangular mirror and to the small square mirror. I used a dulled yellow for the rectangular mirror. I painted the amber pyramid lights at the top. For the headlights, I painted the chrome by painting the bottom blue and putting in some reflections. On the glass I lightly shaded the top half and left most of the bottom half white. I painted in the dark part of the windshield wipers and carefully painted the darks in the V8 sign. I added a little detail to the wheels to make them pop out a little. Then I redarkened parts that I thought needed to have a little more emphasis, like behind the front tire. I put shadow in underneath the Ford sign on the side panel.
On the window wipers chrome I cheated just a bit and used white ink pen. I just can't paint that small!
I did demo how to use a razor blade/exacto to scrape some white into parts of the rust on the front bumper. You can also scrape a bit of white into the gravel area for more texture.
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