Frederick County Pastorale, 20 x 16, Uart 320

Drawing on Uart board

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Painting in progress

I’ve been having some frustrating times with cameras!  Have been trying to get work done for an upcoming Rock Workshop but my videocamera keeps going to standby.  So I’ve started and stopped a number of paintings.  yesterday was my birthday so I decided I would do a painting for me that didn’t need a videocamera!  Last week we had a lovely drive through Frederick County and I’ve  been wanting to get started on a scene that I knew I would paint.  I took the picture from a one-lane bridge over a stream. No way you could do this on site!  I was really happy painting this–and then we lost our power during a wind storm!  But it came back and all is well and today I finished the painting.

I began with the basic shapes of mountain, land and water.  I really liked the various diagonals that define the picture and the position of the barn.  For the underpainting I used various warms to go under the yellow greens and blue greens of the water.  While I painted the background mountain in violet, I didn’t use any violet in the painting. I stuck to teals and greens and was happy with the combination.  Andthe underpainting worked nicely under the water.

I painted all the trees in dark blue and really liked the color with the background mountain and the greens.  I was concerned that I’d have too much busyness in the midground –land above stream.  I was able to simplify it enough so that I was really happy with it.  Then I was concerned that the rock with foam might be a competing center of interest, but I think the barn is strong enough.

Now I’m dealing with my Nikon camera which seems to be taking pictures too lightly. I adjusted the brightness on this and i think it’s pretty good.  I’ve found a real, live camera shop in Arlington and I think I’ll be heading there!

Had the second surgery on my left wrist last Monday and my hand is very sore and weak, but hopefully I’ll be back to some form of normal in not too many weeks!