Cambridge-Battenville Rd @ Dunbar Rd. More on composing.

45  F  mostly cloudy

I'm not wanting this fall season slip through my fingers without painting some foliage, an least the colorful kind. It seem the only way to really feature color is to make a tree portrait, which is OK, but not my prize, anyway I found this scene and I liked the play of color and the composition, so it worked.

 #424 Cambridge-Battenville Rd, @ Dunbar Rd.

8 x 10

This shows my set up close to the way I see it. I included three of the yellow trees, and the two round bales of hay in the foreground. I liked the pattern they made, it just felt right.

Here is the whole scene, when I first got out of the van, I liked the light, but wasn't sure how I'd organize it. There were too many trees! I was also thinking the clouds would give way, but they didn't.

Here are three trees to the left of the scene I painted.  In this scene is a car, a mailbox, and one bale of hay. I guess I didn't want a car, and it didn't feel right,  maybe it was the single bale on the right.

By the time I get to actually paint, I know what the big elements are going to do, and the zig-zag of the field/road/field/sky is a theme I'm familiar with and it works.

I was waiting for the sky to clear, but there were plenty of greens to work.....

By this time I had to get the sy in clouds and all, though there were some breaks in them that let some nice light in.....

The sky made a huge difference, after which I was able to start putting in the bright yellow of the subject trees.

I wasn't sure if the lights of the yellow trees would be bright enough, and that maybe I should have made everything else darker. I did break out some Flake white for this task.

Here is where I ended up, I had decided I would do the 8 x 10 and not the 14 x 16, because I wanted a quicker session, I ended up spending an hour and a 1/2. So it shows you that a smaller canvas doesn't necessarily equate with less time.

My Pallet.

Not bad, as the crow flies, I was very close to my favorite river and just a bit farther up the road to my favorite metal truss bridge.