Road to the Lake, Day 3

While I promised I wouldn't weigh in every time I put a speck of paint on my canvas, I do think it's all right if in these entries, I show you each step in a particular painting.  For example, today I'll show you the first step, the underpainting, again:

I want to make sure you don't forget how scary this looks!  And I would follow it with the day I started to put down the "first pass", i.e., when I started using the paint in colors that may or may not remain when the work is finished.  In other words, the "sketch" (above) is finished so it's time to get down to work.  Except, it turns out I did not take a picture that day - probably because I had promised not to bore you.  So I guess you'll have to imagine what it looked like. 

Instead, I'll show you what it looks like now:

 

The second day, I worked on the foreground vegetation on the right hand side, the road with its shadows, and the sky.  Today I worked on the field in the middle ground, the tree on the left, the lake, and the mountain in that order.  Once I was home, I re-sized the farm buildings - barn in mid-right and farmhouse (the ghostly apparition that is merely saving a place for the building) - back to almost accurate scale.  I had toyed with the idea of making them more prominent but realized today that didn't suit the "story" of the painting - which is all about the excitement of this first view of the lake as we drove down the road. 

 

You may notice that I am not trying to paint every blade of grass or each individual weed.  Instead I am trying to let the color give you an idea of what is in the painting figuring that your mind will do the rest - filling in the blanks I leave.  It's more impressionistic than realistic.

 

Anyway, what remains to be done?  A lot actually.  The sky as it is now has to go!  I was experimenting with ultramarine blue instead of my usual cadmium blue.  This color doesn't fit the brilliant palette I'm using for this painting.  Stay tuned for a new sky next time. 

 

All of the trees need work and many of them aren't even there, yet!  Both of the trees on the left - the one right on the road and the second down by the farmhouse have only their basic real color (as opposed to the underpainting color).  The evergreen on the road will be covered by the frame (if this painting ever is framed, of course, but one has to think of that) if I don't pull its branches out farther.   The tree on the right (look back at the first painting) has been covered almost completely by lake and mountain.  That was deliberate as this tree is deciduous so there will be more space between branches and leaves for background to show through.  It's easier to paint the background first!  The trees behind the buildings aren't there at all, but they will be eventually.

 

Then there are the buildings.  The farm, of course, but also the cabins across the lake below the mountain - and their reflections. 

 

Once all of that is at least laid in, I'll have to step back and see what doesn't work, what does, balance of color, perspective, focal point and so on.

 

It will be a couple of weeks before you see this again, but I will continue to show you in that one entry all the stages the painting has gone through.