At The Four-Way, right next to the Chevron station, there is a classic red barn with an enormous Valley oak tree, quercus lobata. It’s just part of the landscape, and one day while I was getting gas, I realized that this barn could just tumble, or the excess pavement near the tree could prevent it from getting the water it requires and BOOM, gone-zo. So, I took a photo to paint from, realizing there would need to be some severe editing and a liberal application of artistic license.
I started painting it one morning when I was a bit short on time but eager to get rolling. A friend stopped by to visit and kept me company while I started. I felt pretty optimistic about the painting by the end of the session.
Then I looked at this photo and realized the barn’s proportions were completely whackadoodle. So, I erased the worst parts.
Then I drew them in correctly. (How/why did I skip this step initially?? Never mind about having a friend hanging out. . . I used to be able to talk and draw.)
Back on track. . .
I realized that the orange trees needed to be different shades of green from the oak, so I mixed new greens and fixed up that grove.
Then I started working on the tree.
There was too much sky, and it needed hills and mountains.
Those clumps of leaves seemed to take forever.
It was a good day painting, and when I finished, I sat across from it with my critical hat on (metaphorically speaking because I wasn’t actually wearing a hat), I made a list of about 10 things to correct or add.
Want to see the photo that I snapped while I was getting gas?
You can see that severe editing was required to turn it back into a real countrified scene. And you can probably see about 90 things that I can do to make it be a better painting.
2 Comments
I love that old barn! And yes, I’m glad you grabbed it in oils before it disappeared (always sad to hear about that)!
And thank you for including the steps from start to finish. What a difference! Are you going to add any of the detailed tidbits, like the mailbox, table and (what I assume are) apple crates, etc.?
Sharon, The Red Barn used to serve BBQ food and might have also been a fruit stand. Then the Chevron + Subway built a fancy truck-stop arrangement next to it, but kept the barn in place. It is now a repository for junk, all just sitting there with the concrete tables and who-knows-what. Looks like a mess because it is a mess. But the barn and the oak remain as a landmark, and I think that Chevron truck-stop is actually called The Red Barn.
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