The Painting Journey of the Texas Red Horse Trailer

Stumbled on this structure, in one of my back road trips through Texas, as part of my quest to capture the vanishing landscape. The focus of this composition was the fence post and the way it appeared in front of the barn which created a since of distance. Liked the flowers around the fence post and the way the barn was back light by the sun.

Stage One:

Blocked in the structures, located the landscape; start to set the values (lights and darks) for the watercolor.

The fence post and the roof of the barn were painted with frisket to save the white paper. By doing this I can paint many graded washes (a wash goes from light to dark or dark to light). Because I paint the sky so may time, sometimes  the drawing board is turned upside down in order to grade the wash from light (starting at the proposed vegetation) to a darker sky. Other times I will paint from the darker blue sky down to a lighter sky at the location of the future vegetation.  Later in the painting the vegetation and trees will be painted over the lower, lighter sky in this case.

Skies are always a lot of work. To arrive at the luminosity in my skies they are painted and changed many times through the course of the painting until I can believe what I see in the painting and it feel good.

Most often, I generally use three colors of blue to arrive at my desired sky color. Sometimes it will take 7 or 8 washers to achieve a flat blue graded sky. The sky is completed before the clouds are introduced into the painting.

When I select a subject to paint, the objective is to always create a new challenge – something I've never painted before. This painting challenge was the white, black light flowers in the front – never painted this flower before.

The painting may end up look simple and ordinary; however this was one of my more difficult painting experiences.

Will post every two days in groups of three images. Enjoy this progressive journey with me of my Texas Red Horse Trailer.

Thank you for your interest in and following the Art of Mary Dove

Mary Dove

Bye for now. See you Friday night!