Vermont Farm - Step 4

Vermont Farm - Step 4
Oil  20" x 20"
Day 12 in the 30 in 30 Days Challenge

Yesterday I talked about the front of the corn field, whether or not to continue the corn, or have it be a fallow field of something else.  After thinking about this for awhile I kept it all corn.  The focal point of the painting is the farm and I felt that something different in the front would draw the viewers eye to the bottom of the painting away from the buildings.  With just freshly cut cornstalks in the entire front, the rows are similar which is a calmer feeling.  (Freshly cut corn stalks are a challenge to paint!  These look like they could be freshly cut anything, but that works as they are not the main subject matter.)  I feel that I now have a better composition.  The rows take your eye from the bottom of the painting up to the corner of the subject mass and then across the buildings, up the left side of the silo, round the top, down the right side and back into the buildings.

I've started putting the colors into the buildings.  I painted the biggest darkest mass first, (sometimes I paint the lightest mass first) the shadow side of the big barn, then the silo next to that.  I previously talked about the relationship of the color masses next to each other..even though I got the silo values pretty accurately, it now looks to me that the shadow side of the silo may not be dark enough and the light side is almost the same value as the sky.  A color isn't accurate until seen in relationship to the color mass next to it!  So, now I'm going to have to spend awhile looking at and thinking about those two areas.  But, until I get the rest of the barn painted I won't know if the shadow side is right!