The light was particularly beautiful on the forsythia blooming by the shadowed side of a barn, so I made that my subject. This time I painted in pastel. I showed how I blocked in my large masses and then used Turpenoid to scrub in the color before adding more detail. Here's my finished piece.
"Goffstown Barn"9x12, pastel, en plein air - SOLD
While I took a break, the students found their spots and painted. Most of us stayed out of the sun, since we'd gotten too much of it yesterday.
Later, I noticed that the light had changed significantly on the scene that I'd painted earlier. The sun had come around and really warmed up the side that had been in shadow. I decided to show my approach to making a quick, 30-minute sketch. I focussed more on capturing the value and color contrasts than on accurate color and form. Here's the sketch.
"Goffstown Barn II"5x7, pastel, en plein air - SOLD
By the way, red barns can be troublesome to paint. The color can appear so blazingly warm, even in the shadows. I find that to make red barns work, you have to push the temperature difference a bit between sunlit and shadow areas. Then, watch that you don't make the light reflecting into the shadows too warm.
Tomorrow, I'll go back to oil again. But no more architecture! We'll head out to Kimball Pond to paint water.
