We’re snowed in again! Instead of teaching and hopefully selling a painting this afternoon, I’m in my home studio. I’ve been working on my upcoming Finding Your Style workshop in Tiverton and thinking a lot about composition and color. So I’ve decided to do a demo today and discuss my thoughts and process. Have no idea whether the results will be good or not!
Composition. In this post, I’m giving you the color photo (I also have a black and white I’ll work from) and my graphite drawing. The farm is on a hill along Route 28 on the way to Point of Rocks. There is a barn and silos further up the hill. What I love is the shape and lighting on the shed and the formation of the buildings around the house. In order to get it all in and make the picture more dramatic, I’ve placed these closer together and raised the hill. There is a progression leading from the long narrow building at lower left to the house and up the hill to the shed at upper right. There is a clothesline in the front of the house in photo) that I have moved to the back and I might remove the small building obstructing its view. I have played with the background hills and wanted more of a backdrop to the shed. I’ll also add clouds but will probably do that at the point of putting pastel on paper. I find it hard to draw them in.
Value. Most of the picture is in a similar value with darks in the buildings and four areas of light that I hope will carry the eye through the picture: the long roof, the front of the house, some lights in the fields and the light on the shed. Manipulation of the value is going to be really key in this picture since so much of it is similar greens!
Color considerations. Since this is going to have a lot of greens, I decided to tone the surface with a reddish color. I used quinacridone (cool) red with a lot of umber to dull it. It’s a mid value, which I like. I won’t be doing any kind of underpainting on top of it, so I have to have a value and color that will work throughout. The buildings in the photo are all violet and yellows. I will probably make some changes, but will definitely keep violets in there (how could I not?!)
Reference photo
Graphite drawing (10″ x 12″)
Love the graphite drawing. You enhanced the photo in your drawing which is something as a novice I never thought of doing. I am always trying to be perfect and paint what is see in the photo. Thank you Thank you ! I am free to change the composition for a more dynamic painting.
How lucky you are to live in beautiful surroundings.
Thanks Toya. I’m struggling with the picture at the moment and will share where I’m at. Not sure what’s going to happen with it!!! But the compositional changes are really key. Jean