Yellow Farmhouse, West Harris Rd, UART 320, 20″ x 16″

Underpainting

Underpainting with alcohol

Initial painting of house

I’ve been busy teaching and getting ready for my second cataract surgery.  But I finished a painting of a Montgomery County farmhouse today after struggling with the color. The house is all yellow, but much of it is in shadow and I had a hard time getting the color to work right.  I had many shots of the house but really liked this head-on view with the large bush at left and the roof cut off at top.  I made the sky greener than it was, which made it sunnier and more cheerful.

The light is coming from the left, but there are also skylights in the small and larger roof, which brought light under the eaves–a strange place for it!  It also seemed to be coming from below in places, like the stairs.  I tried to follow the photo fairly closely, but had to do what looked right in some places.

One of the things that really attracted me to this was the green painted roofs of the porch, along with the blue violets in the windows.  It seemed like a “house of many colors”!  My friend Sunny says the green is there to fool the flies which think it’s the sky!  Hadn’t heard that one before but I loved the color anyway.

The yellows were the biggest challenge.  I started by using blues and violets in the shaded areas, such as the large triangle about the door.  But looking at other pictures, I realized that this was all yellow paint, so I had to add some dull yellow to it.  I used some yellow greens and brownish yellows in the porch areas that were in shadow.  I ended up with a brighter yellow than what is on the house, but that was fine with me.  The railing catching the light was one of the nicest details.
For the lattice under the porch, I used a dark underpainting. Then I added some dark blue Girault and pushed it into the picture with my fingers.  Then I went over it with parallel then crossed lines of one color. I added some pieces of darker color into the holes.  I also blurred it a bit and added some slightly darker color over it, so that it wouldn’t look too artificial.  I was happy with the way it came out.  Putting some small plants in front also helped.

Next week is IAPS and I won’t be there.  First conference I’ll miss since I started going in 2003.  I don’t think I’ll miss it at this point but I’ll miss seeing the wonderful friends that I’ve made over the years.  If you are going, I hope you have a wonderful time.