Namibia Desert Tree - Unfinished

I started a painting today of a tree that I saw seven and a half years ago:

This painting's got a ways to go, but having the basic colors down is a good beginning.
I saw this tree while on a Foreign Study Program that traveled around Southern Africa. This was in the desert near Dune 45 in Namibia. This is the one dune in the area that people are aloud to walk up so as not to disturb the rest of the fragile ecosystem, and although when you are out there you would think it would feel like you were in the middle of nowhere with very few people in sight, this is where anyone who wants to walk these dunes goes. This means at sunrise there are plenty of people with cameras. Still, it is beautiful. When I see pictures of where we were they seem more like dreamscapes than actual places.