Painting everyday: Niles Rd., White Creek.

36  F  cloudy

I drove around for quite a while when I spotted this barn group. The sun was out for a few minutes and I'd thought I'd try to find it, but by the time I got there it was gone again.

#439 Niles Rd. White Creek.

9 x 12

There was a bit if lightness in the sky when I started, but not much, and the grayness flattened everything out, just not a spectacular day.

I started with the sky, used titanium with mixed black +extra blue, but the warm tone near the horizon I used a little flake white mixed with a bit (tiny) if cad. yellow light. The background tone would be perfect to allow to show through in the fore ground.

Just a bit too dark.

Moving along....

The roofs make it real.

Here is where I ended up, the foreground was a challenge, but I'm reasonably pleased with it, at least for now.

Here is the scene. I liked how the plowed area is diagonally oriented to the rectangle, even though it's subtle.

 Sight-size shot; this is how I paint. the scene next to and the same size as the painting.

Painting everyday.

I wish I painted everyday, I don't.  I paint almost everyday; it's a goal of mine to paint as much as possible. when I paint a lot, I feel I don't have to think about it. My pallet is laid out with the same colors in the same places, so mixing is second nature, (or close to it) and the process of looking and getting the tones of nature: the color that's in front of me at any given moment, is as well like an automatic reflex. I don't think it's so much about the speed, as it's about responding directly to what's in front of me, getting that first tone down, then going to the next. But mostly it's about looking at nature, seeing what's in front of me and loosing myself in the  process. When I bring back the painting I'll be able to see what I did and think about it, but in the field I need all the time I can get to look. The quest to find a spot, (while sometimes drives me nuts) is a practice that, much like getting up and facing the world everyday represents life's daily calling; we may never get to the destination, but the act of looking, seeking, longing is in itself the money.