Hickory corner progression.

Finished painting

Painting outside today - was out in Hunterdon County taking reference photos for a commission piece. I passed these run down out buildings at a cross roads. There was an adjacent sign telling me that the tavern at Hickory Corners was a stop on the stage coach route along the Kings Highway. So I thought I would do a preliminary sketch for a later painting.


Subject chosen, followed by initial sketches and masking 10:31


Set up

Masked roofs with tape,
Initial washes for sky and trees
10:50 AM


Add wash for grass
Masking tape removed
windows put in while washes dry. Oops - smudged one.
10:58 AM -

Windows completed
doors and trim added with dry brush,
Begin adding weeds at base with dry brush
11:08 AM


Washes for roof added
Dry brush to indicate slate tiles
11:28
Begin adding vines on the fronts of the buildings
Add shadows under the eaves
Dry brush building sides it imitate peeling paint

11:39 AM (about 1 hour after starting)


Add washes to darken the value of the trees in back and to create defined tree shapes. Starting to balance values.

11:43AM

The light's changing quickly and I'm having a hard time catching the values I want. Its getting cloudy.

Additional vines added
Shadows darkened

11:44


More washes glazed onto the grass in the foreground, and a feeble attempt at some rusted farm machinery added for interest.

12:06 pm



There is too much foreground for the composition, I'll crop the final piece. Not a bad preliminary painting for an hour and a half stretch of time.

Hope Farm

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Three versions of a farm in Hope New Jersey. I think the balance of values on the third is probably the more successful. I was experimenting with the opacity of the red barn, I thought the fully saturated version at the top would be best, but I think it might be too strong.

Hope was settled in 1769 by Moravians, who remained until 1808. The Moravians, a Protestant Group, believed in spreading the word of Christianity throughout the world, developed the Town of Hope as part of this ministry to the Indians. The winding, hilly, roads are surrounded by small, picturesque farms like this one, nestled in an emerald valley. Surrounding names allude to the Moravian history including the town of Tranquility and Shades of Death road.

Warm up - Cassville Farm

A series of warm up pics - their not really warm ups so much anymore. I've found its helpful for me to be able to step back from a main painting and work on something else to either let the main piece dry or to just stop fiddling with it for awhile.

So these little images are helpful. I'm starting to see a pattern as I work multiples like this - they tend to move from very tight to more loose as I work on them. I like them all for different reasons.



I worked on these in series -working the sky on each one in turn, then the grass, the buildings etc. this is the first one - I found the sky kind of boring and the trees mabye too literal and hard edged which makes them advance too much and limits the sense of depth. The fence is also a little overwhelming of the image. The brush in the foreground has a great texture though.

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This is the second one - I added some more interest in the sky. The trees are less literal but still a little hard edged for the background. The grass is more interesting with the red streaks in it. The brush is a little blobular though. The fence is a lot better as a simple barbed wire.

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This is the third one in the series - I added more visual interest in the sky by spraying it with some water to give it more sparkle and I pulled in some of the green of the landscape and added some violet. I worked the trees wet-in-wet to keep them unfocused and quiet so they would recede into the background more. Although the grass is a simple one color wash it does provide a quiet place in the composition for the eye to rest. The foreground fence is simple and the brush has just enough interest to warrant being up front.

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