Adding sky

 

 

The first change I think the "boring photo" needed was a horizon line. 

 

Oils are perfectly designed for sky and water. I started with a group of white clouds to the left and a block of white clouds in the middle extending across the board. It was much too busy. So, I kept blending blues in to the wet paint until I was happy with what you see above. The extended drying time of oils gives me time to play around with ideas, especially with this painting in which all the decisions are not made before I start.

 

 

 

A Boring Photo

 I've taken a lot of reference photos. In my studio drawers are over 25,000 4" X 6" photos (all cross-referenced by subject) and I have well over 170,000 digital photos. Some of these photos are gems from around the world and some might only have a tiny bit of information which could be useful in a future painting.

Then, there are boring ones like the one below.

 

I took a number of angles of this boat when I saw it a couple of years ago. What is the appeal? The water is a nondescript color, the background buoys are not terribly attractive, the brown pole doesn't do anything, and the brown/rust above the water line on the boat is unattractive. 

But, there was something about the lines of the boat, it's closeness to shore, the light on it which drew my interest. Guess that is why I took seven photos of it. 

Over the last couple of years I have visited the digital photos of this boat only to leave perplexed. How do I turn this in to a painting? 

I have an idea. Watch me - I think I can make it work.

Finished

 

Grass Is Always Greener

Original Oil

21" X 32"

 

 This painting certainly used a variety of greens! As for the color of the horse, to me this was the obvious choice. The pops of reds, rust, and orange stand out to create the story hinted by the title.

The next painting will not be "all"  greens. I'm working on my summer collection for the Martha' Vineyard gallery and the next piece will feature water and reflections.

Thanks for following.

More Green

 

Finally. The upper right leaves from a foreground tree are a nice warm green. I was able to break out the sap green and mix it with Gamblin's radiant yellow. Some sections have a touch of Rembrandt's cadmium yellow deep but I found the radiant yellow got me a more intense color.

 

 The farm has this craggy tree right next to the rock wall. I could have made it "pretty" but I found parts of it were quite interesting. I didn't paint every branch but went for the elements which in my mind defined the tree.

 The foreground grass and vegetation are rather loose. With all that is going on in the painting I didn't want one's eyes to stop on really detailed foreground plants/weeds. I did however want to make sure the brightest and warmest greens were on this side of the rock wall.

 

 

 

Rocks

 

 

The rock wall in the background has few colors but to make the foreground rock wall read well I put strokes of raw sienna and blues in the shadows and played around with the warm sunlit colors. This is all to the right of the tree. To the left of the foreground tree I went with cooler colors to help that portion of the wall recede in to the middle ground.

 

 

 

Rock Walls & Gates

 

The background rock wall is "bluer" than the foreground will be. As you can see from the image below, I start with the dark areas first.

 

 

From this vantage point of the farm you can see two gates. A common design on Martha's Vineyard is three to four horizontal boards, a middle vertical board for support if it is a wide gate, and an angled board attached to the top of the granite vertical post on the right and at the lowest part of the gate on the left. 

 

 

More Greenery

 

 

At this stage I really want to leap in to mixing warm greens to balance the cool greens. However, I know  there is plenty of the painting to go which will need the contrast. 

Before I finish for the day I painted the more warm green line in the middle of the painting. Just a touch of warmth to suggest where the greens will go next.