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!

Vermont Farm - Step 3

Vermont Farm - Step 3
Oil  20" x 20"

Day 11 of the 30 in 30 Days Challenge

After blocking in the values of the farm: the barns, houses and trees, I next put in the colors surrounding that mass.  While I tried to portray the values of the farm accurately, no color is true until seen next to the color beside it.  So, had I painted the farm first, I would have probably had to make color changes.  I still might have to.  But, by putting the colors in all around the farm it will help me when putting down the color notes.

I've left the front empty for the moment.  In the photo there's a road in the front.  In my preliminary sketch I drew the lines for corn stalks as if to continue the field.  But when I got the darker under green down, I wondered how it would look if I painted that as a fallow field.  So, I'll think about that for a bit and then decide.

Fall Colors

Fall Colors

Oil 6" x 8"

$100.00 + $10. s/h

SOLD

My husband and I recently got home from a 3 week trip to Vermont, Maine, and Nova Scotia.  The idea for the trip started with an artist friend showing pictures of a trip she had taken to Monhegan Island, Maine in the '70's.  For several years a group of us kept saying that we should go there!  Well, one day last winter the trip got planned.  16 of us: artists, husbands, family, ended up on Monhegan Island for 4 days in September/October...more about that soon!  My husband and I have friends from high school who have Vermont connections.  Since Vermont is near Maine, (relatively speaking when you live in Colorado!) we went to Vermont for a week at the beginning of the trip.  I'm pretty biased toward the fall colors in Colorado, but Vermont was spectacular.  New England in the fall is every thing that they say it is!  Each day got more colorful and more beautiful!

This painting was done near Lincoln, Vermont.  We had wonderful weather, stayed in a quintessential Vermont farmhouse and a wonderful lake house, went for walks, visited, laughed, saw the sites, had fun.  And, I managed to do a little bit of painting.  Every thing that a trip should be!