Warm thoughts

Midsummer Barn 16x12 pastel, copyright 2012

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday season.  We live fairly close to much of our family and were able to celebrate with them.  My many cousins and adorable little nephew are always good for smiles.  Needless to say, I haven't done a whole lot of artwork for the past weeks.

However, on the second day of the new year we had our first measurable (about 1 inch) of snow, and it got me wishing for warmer weather already.  I sorted through the many photos taken over the summer and fall, finally settling on this one.  If it looks at all familiar, this is the same spot and same barn I painted late last year from a frosty morning.

This one was more of a struggle for me as I had a lot of trouble getting the shadows of the trees to look right.  First they were too patchy, then too purple, then too solid.  And I had grasses with seed heads on the lower right, but found it too distracting and so took them out.  When in doubt, simplify!  Making the middle foreground lighter helped too - without that light area, the barn was far too strong of an element.  I think I finally got it right, and am pleased with the depth it has.  The road/field looks like it just keeps going off to the right - which it does.  One of these days I will get permission to walk down that way.  Once it gets warm again, that is.