Finishing the Vermont Barnyard painting.

Above is the painting after I worked on it in the studio for a day. Below is the Vermont barnyard scene as I brought it in from outside.

First I wet sanded, with 150 grit and mineral spirits, the bothersome passages in the sky where several areas of brush strokes caught the light in the wrong way. That problem is called sueding. I took it down to the ground in those areas then repainted it. I used viridian so that the sky would graduate from blue to blue green. Viridian is a handy color to use in skies.

• I straightened out the lean in the barn by putting a T square on it and then checking it in a mirror.The eve on the right hand wall with the door was too low and threw the whole thing off. I also threw a little more color in there to get more light and make it more interesting. I straightened out the house too, while I was in the neighborhood.
• I buffed up the red truck and put some additional work into that passage. On the other side of the barn I worked up the farm machinery and played up its pattern against the snow. That gave me decorative outrigger filigrees extending Tahiti style out from the barn on either side! Kon Tiki!
• I lightened the right hand barn and accented its shadow. I cleaned up the tree that ran in front of the middle barn.
• I reworked the hay rolls on the lower left, I separated them from the edge of the frame. I felt like they called too hard from their corner down there.
• Lastly I defined the trees a little better, they are really important in this painting. In New England a landscape painter is often just a tree portraitist.

I felt this piece came off pretty well. Tomorrow I will hand it to Banks gallery of New London.This post is really a continuation of the first post showing the process outside, here.