"Heading South," (Lucas Cross Farm), p. 2

First I painted the whites, so I could make some value judgements.  It's a good idea to paint your lightest lights early on. 

Then I looked at dozens of my photos of cloudy skies, and finally decided to do it this way. Most of my photos showed horizontal streaks of gray, but I found that if I varied the streaks, it was more interesting. Remember I'm going to add a flock of geese. I worked on the middle ground trees,  the cornfield, the grass, and a bit on the road.  

I need to finish the foreground, especially the big tree on the left, before I can go back and refine the rest. 

 Lucas Cross Farm 

I took these photos nearly 10 years ago and I have wanted to paint these barn buildings since then.  I think it will be a good demonstration of the planning and execution from a photo to a painting.  I'm attracted to the simple palette and the contrast of the barn against the dark sky.  

First, here are a few pictures of the original scene: 

I will be using the center one as my basic design, with some changes of course.  

Step 1. PRINTING

I cut a piece of the Strathmore Canvas Paper to 8 1/2 x 11 and put it in my printer, with my fingers crossed that it wouldn't ruin the printer.   It went through just fine, and this is the image.  The paper didn't take the ink too well, but it saved me a lot of drawing.

Step 2.  DECIDING ON A SIZE

I waffled for a while between 9x12 and 12x16, and finally decided on the former.  So then with the proportion wheel, ruler, and white masking tape in hand, I decided where it needed cropping.  Then I started to apply paint to the canvas paper print.

Step 3.  ADJUSTING THE DESIGN

I asked myself what I didn't like about the painting...the major thing was the silo was too tall.  So I shortened it, made the right hand tree more interesting, and developed the gray thing on the right into a house.  I made the center tree larger.  

Step 4. MORE DEVELOPMENTS

I tried some blue in the sky and made notes on the canvas.  I plan to add a flight of geese and will call the painting "Heading South."

Step 5. THE GRIDDED CANVAS

I marked off the canvas with soft vine charcoal into one inch squares and numbered them accordingly.

Step 6.  GRIDDING THE PRINT

I taped Saran Wrap over the print and used my ruler to divide the space into 9 equal sections vertically and 12 equal sections horizontally.  Note my ruler is not in the corners.  The actual size of the print was around 5 1/4" horizontally and I wanted to divide it into 12 parts.  I angled the ruler until the 6" mark was on the right side of the print.  I then put a tick mark every 1/2 inch.  Then did the same vertically, and numbered the squares accordingly.

Step 7. THE CHARCOAL DRAWING

Following the grid on the print, I carefully drew in the basics of the composition.

Step 8. THE COLOR DRAWING

Carefully wiping out the charcoal as I went along, I painted where the charcoal lines had been.  I used a darkish blue-gray.  

Step 9.  THE UGLY COLOR UNDERPAINTING

You can see I'm still undecided about the sky. I do want to keep it on the dark side so it will contrast with the white barn.  The geese will go somewhere in the left side.  That's a detail which I will paint last.  I made one major change...rather than have the road make two turns (which confuses the eye), I eliminated the right hand turn which keeps the eye in the picture.  The eye then goes back to the tree and up into the rest of the painting.  

Honoring the Shiplap House         Pinkney Street Shadows (plein air), 14 x 18, oil on linen       After walking around forever looking for an exciting scene at a "Paint Annapolis" plein air event, I finally found this historic street which beckoned me with its luscious lights and shadow patterns where I happily settled in to paint Pinkney Street Shadows.      At the time, I was unfamiliar with all the history, and so I had no clue that the red clapboard house that I included on the right had any particular significance. Boy, was I wrong.          I have since learned that it is the Shiplap House, built by Edward Smith about 1715, and is one of the oldest surviving houses in Annapolis. It is downtown at 18 Pinkney Street, just blocks from the Maryland State House and the US Naval Academy. During the eighteenth century, it served as a tavern and an inn, run by Mr. Smith and his wife.  The word shiplap comes from overlapping, random-width flush siding on two sides of the building. It is painted this lush barn red color and the widths of the boards are unusually wide, indicating that were made from old mature trees in the early 1700s. Currently the Shiplap House is home to the Historic Annapolis Foundation. Below are some pictures of the Shiplap House:

Prints of my painting, Pinkney Street Shadows, are available at Fine Art America. The original is available on my website and comes in a gold frame with free shipping.