
I spent a lot of time composing this painting. It’s from a photograph of a farm with two barns, a truck, and the hay bales. The photo was a far away shot and in landscape format.
I was immediately drawn to the lines of the two barns where they intersected the hay bales. I played up the contrast there and made it the center of interest in the composition.
The tree on the right was my own addition, a little artistic license to keep you in the painting.
I used a split-complementary color scheme here of blue, red-orange and yellow-orange, with a little red-violet thrown in for accent.
I’ve been helping a friend who is struggling a bit with watercolor, and my advice was to learn to let the watercolor do the work. As Keiko Tanabe says, “you’re a team.” I let the colors mingle on the paper and granulate in the upper barn roof.
Those colors are my “secret recipe.” I use a Daniel Smith pigment that I’ve never heard of anyone else using, and I discovered it by accident. But it’s now my favorite, and I work it into as many paintings as possible.
I adore the way this turned out. This is my style: bold color and lots of drama.
The exercise was from Brienne M. Brown’s class on Composition over at OpenStudioOnline.com.