Observation #9 Terry's Farm Part 2- Dec 21

                                 Back again to finish this nowhere near 'step-by-step' demonstration-it is more like a                                                                'hop skip and jump'sort of thing.
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                I ended part one talking about the old windmill. Windmills are not something I talk about when  I'm in the area around Kingsbridge- too much controversy and since I'm not a local anymore I'm not sure what side of the issue the person I'm talking to is on. The issue of course, is that of the Wind Farms. There are people 'for', and people 'against,' and if I were a politician,(perish the thought!) I'd say: "I'm on the side of the people"

                 I repainted the windmill this time treating it with that approach I use when regarding something as                                                       a finished part of the painting
            The Moral of the story: don't block in something like a windmill in a sketchy manner-it's OK for trees but not a structure as fine in it's edges as the steel structure in a 100 year old windmill (I'm guessing it is at least that old). I would claim that I should have used a smaller brush too but it's a poor workman who blames his tools. I wonder if the cost of electricity gets too high if it  wouldn't be a good idea to pump your water out of the ground the way they did a century ago.
                             
                         Before the pencil lines were erased-  enough about the windmill

             Here is an observation that argues for making a detailed drawing before any paint is applied.
Remember these observations are just mine -some painters will be saying :" well of course Dalton -that's obvious -it's even taken for granted!" ....  others might be thinking that you shouldn't be too precise to start with because  that does not allow you any flexibility...I have no advice on the matter-"you gotta do what you gotta do". I do however, recall the realization that drawing 'first' turns the space into volumes and that's never a bad thing. The observation in question is that of the  questionable placement of shapes in this next                                                                                       photograph

I found my eye going to that place where the green tape leads to. The trouble is I didn't notice it soon enough

Geez.... for a painter you don't notice a lotta things...yeah that's a problem...

It is all those edges converging at one place that pulls your eye to it like a magnet-and yes you would have noticed it even if I hadn't drawn your attention to it...eventually.

...not only that but that bottom foliage on the tree seems to have been painted so it would fit into the green shape at the front of the cattle wagon- a terrible thing to do! a 'dumb' thing  to do- it's so obvious that the leaves seem to be 'placed ' in that green rectangle -so...

...after I did what I could to diminish the  converging shapes effect, I scraped away the surface paint from 

the leaves in front of the wagon and .....

-repainted that area, as well I messed around with some leaves above that-

Also at this stage I painted some sky shapes into the tree and if you look closely at the right side of the silo

you can see I repainted it and that left some floating leaf shapes to get rid of.

There is more to the story  but that's all I  am up for on this work-On the last day I had to clear a space on my worktable so I pushed all the paint to one end and I was somewhat surprised at the numbers of tubes and bottles I had taken out of storage for this work. The following is the photograph I thought I was taking  for the record

overall the photograph  is too light (compare with the image behind the Soft Gel jar below) but the painting itself  felt complete. As  my habit of taking a few months to live with a painting wasn't available I thought I'd take a few shots with a change of the camera settings -(colour temperature settings)  to see if maybe I could see any effects that might help me establish more of a 'mood' The following are some of the shots I took.

too warm

too cool

                                        

too green

too violet

                                                                

 As you can see the too warm, too cool, too green, too violet all have different 'atmospheres', different 'feelings'. I like those words better than mood. Some painters say  success of a painting is due to the

 effective use of the value scale (the light and dark values regardless of the colour used). If that is a good test for the quality of a work then I guess I am content with the effect of the black and white shot below  After considering these photographs all I did to the final work was to darken the driveway and the bottom edge of the painting a very little  bit. 

     If anyone thinks they may prefer the more decorative effect of  one or another of those changes of colour, that's cool; I might too, over the long term, but I don't think a painting that is about the place a person grew up in and has an early life of memories should violate the fundamental 'Perceptual 'Reality' of the place -that is what it generally looked like in the early Autumn. 

Looking at the black and white photo I think if I ever do something like this again I will do a monochrome under painting.(and if put into a blog, take better pictures and crop them)

To finish this brief look at how the thing was done I'll include the final stages.

The first final stage is to apply a separation coat- the theory is that if anyone ever wants to remove the final varnish the separation (gel-coat) will protect the surface of the painting. Some artists don't think this is essential but it doesn't cost much and I conclude that it can't hurt.

Golden  soft gel(gloss)- the separation coat was applied and let dry for 24 hours

-then the final varnish-Liquitex Satin varnish brushed on. I gave it two coats with 6 hours between them. Now that I see this on the screen  the colours look richer and it should be mentioned that this is a better representation of what the final painting would look like if you could see it from the proper viewing distance (Which some say is 'arms length)

Here are a few other options I have used -if I were working in summer I may have used the Golden Spray Varnish- One  needs a well ventilated space that I don't have just now .

                          I guess that's it- if you stuck it out to the end I hope it was somewhat  interesting-since I posted my first blog I haven't had any feedback... I guess that's neither here nor there....   but since I'm not even sure the blog site   address got sent to who I put together in my address folder as the Blog Group...well maybe some kind soul will at least let me know if this got by the Art Censors!

till next time ....Brian

Post blog (P.B. )written on Dec 22

When I think back to post #7 in which I claimed my goal was to present the Why and How of it all, I don't feel that this was all that successful...however, it is what it is..... 

I have had some feed back (thanks) so I now  know this site is accessible and won't be bothering people to tell them I've put some new stuff on (which I think I might do) when other more demanding work gets too heavy. If I were still teaching I think I'd assign a blog project to my students