"Yellow Barn in Morning Light"
9x12, oil
Barns, especially red barns, are sometimes thought of as hackneyed material for the artist. Romantic scenes of rustic architecture may end up on a restaurant placement rather than in a museum. But every landscape artist I know does a barn now and then. There's something attractive about the way sunlight falls on the blocks that make up a barn's shape. I think if you treat the barn as an abstraction and don't try to replicate the rustic quality, your picture may very well escape the grim fate of being selected for a tablemat.
Above is one I did yesterday. I frequently hike past the back end of this barn and, at certain times of day, the light hits it in a way that gives me great pleasure. I've always wanted to paint it like this.
