A Vermont barnyard

Here is a series of shots of a painting I did this week. It is an 18 by 24 in oil on panel.

This is a long mornings work and it will get worked on in the studio before it is finished. I sometimes work things out completely in a monotone before I move into color and opaque paint. This time I worked outwards from the middle of the painting, extending my drawing outwards as I went. I lightly sketched things in with the edge of a #4 flat bristle and turpentine, sometimes adding a little Liquin. The canvas is untoned, it appears cool because I shot these on my easel as I worked. I am rethinking things that don't work as I go. Notice that the hay roll on the lower left above, disappears below. Because I am painting thinly and for the most part transparently, I can wipe things out with a paper towel and some of my mineral spirits.

I completely reworked the mountain on the right, bringing the line down into the house where I wanted your eye to go. I am deliberately keeping most of the action in a band across the middle of the painting and leaving the foreground snow as one large and spare shape.

Here I continue to expand outward from the middle adding the second barn and the house with the porch. I really enjoyed putting the light on the bases of those big maples. They had an orange glow that was really warm and looked great with all the snow. Below I have laid in the snow, mostly in white and my cobalt violet. I also am developing some warm notes in the distant mountain. I have also reestablished the hay rolls in a position I felt made a better design.

I am working at getting a rhythmic structure running through the painting. I am arranging the lines on the various items in the painting to set one another off and I have made of the snow one big shape.

Using yellow ocher and white and a little cad. yellow I establish the form in my snow by carving the lit planes into my middle tone I put down initially. I also build the swelling form of the snow the same way. Above I begin working out those big trees and the junk strewn around the barn.

Here is the panel the way it looked when I packed up for the day, at about 1:30. I started the painting at about 8:30 AM. Those spots in the sky are brushstrokes catching the light. I took this photograph of the painting while it was lying on the ground. I have attempted everything in the landscape. I probably won't need more information about the location. The finishing process will mostly be about making it look good, not adding detail.