Cape Cottage with Roses, 16″ x 20″, UART 320 board
Drawing with 2B graphite
Underpainting, stage 1
Underpainting with alcohol
My second painting is a full size version of a scene that I first painted a week ago as a 4″ x 5″ miniature. This is also from Sandwich, this house being in the older area of the town, which I particularly like. I removed a car and large travel van from the left side that might have given it a more funky look! But, hey–I’m going for roses!
There were a lot of problems with this one. To begin with, the house. With leaves of the trees blocking much of it, I didn’t realize for some time that what was on the far left was actually a roof that came out from the door, and not the left side of the house. As you can see from the underpainting, I had it much further to the left and it just didn’t read right at all! The change made a huge difference (it was my husband who spotted it!). The shadows are also rather odd. The light is obviously coming from the left, hitting the left side of the house and the white fence. The shadows must be coming from the tree branches over head. I followed the photo here as I’m not about to question the science of it all!
I also had problems with the right side of the house, which I believe is weather-beaten shingle, unpainted. I meant to add a few lines in there and I will before i frame it. There was only one window, I added the one on the right to minimize the area of house, whose color I couldn’t figure out what to to with! It’s a combination of brown and violet and I think fairly innocuous.
The roses here are quite small and harder to see. Again, I used my pinks, but added small pieces of a pinkish orange Schmincke to some of them and that really made them pop.
The road was the last challenge. I completely used up a violet Girault on this! Then I added some pinkish color over it and a little greener blue, then the shadows of the telephone wires and the tree shadows. There seems to be enough interest in it now and I’m quite happy with it.
What I love best about this one is the opening in the fence that invites us into the garden and the shadows of the rose bush on the fence.
A note: I began another painting prior to this one. It was a picture of a stone wall with roses and a large house from Marion, MA. For the June Roses painting I had used odorless mineral spirits for the underpainting and loved it. It was like painting. I ran out and decided to use turpenoid. BIG mistake. It didn’t dry and then, when it finally did, it left the surface very pock-marked. I started the painting but hated every minute of it and decided I really didn’t want to paint Marion afterall! So, don’t use turpenoid as a solvent! For this painting, I went back to my trusty alcohol, and it was just fine.