Over the past few days I have been studying this painting. Something wasn’t quite right about it. I realized that there wasn’t enough differentiation between the front of the house and the side. Since the sun was behind the clouds, I couldn’t really use a shadow side and light side approach. I needed to find something else, so I studied the lines where the front and side join. These were too neutral, so disappeared unless closely inspected. It also seemed that in too many places the siding wasn’t drawn out at the roof, again allowing the front and side to appear merged.
To fix these issues, I did the following:
1. Added a few more lines for siding shadow
2. Darkened the lines framing the windows and the trim
3. Added a small line of cobalt blue under the deck trim on the left
4. Darkened some of the set back windows
5. Brought the cloud closer to the right side of the house to give some framing for the extension of the deck.
Did these fixes work, or is there more to do here? I am not sure yet, but I am looking forward to putting this one behind me. I got a lot out of it, and feel like I took a pretty good leap forward since my last 11×14 work, the white house painting. I am comfortable with these more involved works, and feel ready to take one some new challenges. I have three directions I want to take at once for new paintings, and a bunch of new and old ideas coming together that I am anxious to get down. I will post these thoughts over the next few days as I start to bring them together and start a few new paintings.
Thanks for reading.
Corey Aber 