From the Classroom – Farm House and Field

Farm House Reference Photo

Working with the advanced watercolor students on atmospheric perspective and being selective / creative with photo references. Rather than be faithful to the actual photograph, I decided that the farm house was my main inspiration and decided to place a barn structure behind the house. I decided to improvise on the fields edge sweeping across the front.

Drawings and Value Sketch

With the value study completed, I had a fair idea of where I was going to go with this design. The students are starting to appreciate these value sketches as a way to anticipate what I am going to do in painting the design.

Farm House and Field Demo – Holbein Watercolor on Canson 140# – 3″ x 5″

The fun thing about doing these very fast (less than five minutes) paintings, is that I often end up with watercolor results for which I had not planned, yet am able to appreciate and utilize. Sometimes we plan for our watercolors to be too tight and we fail to allow our watercolors to be watercolor. That is, allow and even encourage some of the wild mingling’s and results which we can only obtain with watercolor.

Along Limestone Road

Along Limestone Road – Oil on Canvas – 36″ x 36″

I used a plein air sketch and the small painting titled, Clouds Over Limestone, to create this work. The sky proved to be more tricky than I had anticipated. The task of constantly stepping away from the painting to examine the progress and judiciously adjust as necessary, is especially important when working the larger canvases. This work is on its way to a gallery. Wish us luck.

Solace Along Country Lane and Farmington Way

Solace Along Country Lane – Watercolor on Arches 140# CP – 12″ x 16″

Two recent watercolor paintings created from plein air oil studies.

Solace Along Country Lane is an interpretation of a scene in Door County Wisconsin. I removed a lot of trees, bushes and other growth to expose the house. I added the structure in back and augmented what I could see of the rise in the background.

Farmington Way is based on a scene near Belvidere, Illinois. I added the tree on the left and cleaned up the trees and bushes around the house.

Farmington Way – Watercolor on Arches 140# CP – 12″ x 16″

Through Fields Home

Through Fields Home – Oil on Canvas – 18″ x 24″

On a streak of artist prerogative. I had a photo of a forest scene. The photo has pestered me for more than 25 years. I had tried paintings of the scene in watercolor and in oil paints. I was never satisfied with the efforts.

Came across the photo while searching for a subject for my advanced students. Imagination kicked in. I decided that the fore-ground to mid-ground could work, I just needed to change to woods at the edge of the field. Open it up. Offer a path to move the viewer deeper into the work and give a better focal point. Found a source photo of a farm house and fused it into the scene. I like this effort but imagine that I will play with this further.

Sisson’s House

Sisson’s House – Plein Air – Oil on Canvas Panel – 8″ x 10″

Additional works from Grange Hall Road. The version on top was created on location. The bottom version was created in the studio as part of a diptych.

Farmhouse – Oil on Canvas Panel – 6″ x 8″

Grange Hall Barns

Grange Hall Barns – Oil on Canvas Panel – 6″ x 8″

A few weeks ago, I created a plein air painting along Grange Hall Road. The finished work was 12″ x 24″. The scene included the road, farm house, barn and a few outbuildings. I thought it would be fun to take a portion of the design to focus on just the barn. These make nice little paintings which I use as a economical option for people who like my work but feel that larger works don’t fit their walls, or in some cases, pocket books.