Painting #106, An old friend

Many years ago, my dear friend Lynn and I went on a picture taking trip, it was bitter cold, we still had ice on everything from the ice storm that had hit the day before, and we traversed several back roads in Indiana to get some really great pictures. One of my favorite things to paint are dilapidated old buildings, houses or barns, and the more junk hanging around the better, I wouldn't want to live there but this house is so awesome, I just love it, I took pictures of it from several different directions, I walked up the old drive way, which is on the other side of those pine trees, and took some really great pictures, then on the down side, she informed me there was a "no trespassing" sign, oops, too late now, but I'm so glad I got those pictures, that house has been raised and never to be seen again, I also took some great pictures looking up the road, there was a great fence, and a hill and this other great house peeking over the top, it was a great trip, I'll never forget it and I can still feel the cold.

Of course this picture isn't in the winter, and you don't see ice, since I decided to make it late summer or early fall to change the atmosphere, the photo I used, of course, is in the winter but that is easily changed. I painted this on the clayboard, I've been resisting finishing this one, I started it over a week ago, I wasn't happy with the colors, and the detail in the foreground was invented, on this side of the house, there was not household debris, but, the other side was something else, there were boxes, box springs, and you name it, it was there and trashed. I wanted to emphasize the abandonment of this place, so I added some junk. I had to change the sky, I had to change the house color, I changed the grasses, so I really re-did the whole thing. The sky was too dark, I wanted the house to be the dark, (well, you can't see that it is darker than it looks here, and the roof isn't white like it looks here, hard to take pictures on the clayboard), so the sky became lighter, and then the house, it really was a light dingy yellow, and in the shadows it was sort of brownish yellow, well the color I started out with didn't do a thing for me, it was a greenish and dirty brown, really depressing, so I took that off and put the cleaner color on for the shadows, I really think that made the difference for me, after than I really got into it, I finished this at about 12:30 (lunch time, I painted this at class) I actually ate my lunch while my painting stuff was still laid out, then finished the painting), the china painters were coming in so I had to put the watercolors away, but I left my weeks worth of blog paintings out on the table for the class to see. It was a good day, now I can go finish that dumb book that I got wrapped up in yesterday, glad that I didn't have to get my painting done when I got home, I could relax, so, here it is for today, I love this painting, and I hope you do too.