Willamette Valley Morning, 20″ x 16″, UART 320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Painting partially completed yesterday

Hello Friends.  This morning I went to the studio to work on a painting that I was unhappy with after beginning it yesterday morning.  I was by myself and listened to Bach fugues and found this really wonderful!  I highly recommend the combination of being engrossed in a painting and listening to good music.  It really beats reading the Washington Post these days!

The painting is from an old black and white photo that I’ve had in one of my notebooks for some years.  Its from Oregon and I think it was taken in the afternoon.  I did a drawing of it, making the farm and surrounding bushes more prominent. In the photo, the tall grasses take up more than half of the painting and the buildings are less prominent.

I had a vision of making this a morning picture with light streaming from the sky onto the roofs and grass heads.  But I wasn’t completely sure where I was going and I’ve been quite distracted lately!  I began the underpainting with little thought to the later colors I’d be using, choosing primarily reds and greens!  I guess the red seemed cheerful.  I added lighter reds over some of the darker colors, but, as you can see, when I applied the alcohol, it all became pretty dark!  When I looked at my painting yesterday at home (from the camera images) I was pretty unhappy.  The roof was too light, the sky seemed gray, and the tree at left had been painted with a grayed blue green, that didn’t work at all.

So my first step this morning was to brush off the roof of the barn, the tree, and the background trees.  I reworked them all, using violets and decided to work with violet, green and orange and nothing else (except the yellow of the sky).  Funny thing about using violet!!!  But, of course, I used blue violet, which is the complement of the yellow orange grasses, so it’s all quite harmonious.  For the tree at left, I began with a medium dark violet, then brushed a warm green over it.  I didn’t want much detail.

For the grasses at bottom, I began with a mixture of darks and just laid in some color, then used a variety of Giraults to build up the sense of grasses. Got out my Blue Earth yellow pastels and used them on the grass heads and the sunlit seed heads.  Finally, I added some the Queen Anne’s lace and put a few grasses over them and called it a day.

I’m happy with the overall feel of the painting and particularly the composition.  It’s not a great painting, but it’s the kind of soothing picture that is nice to work on when I’m feeling less than comfortable.  I hope you are all finding good ways of coping. As I said, I highly recommend painting and music — whatever you like! Stay well.