In The Studio: Just Paint 44 “Mary Wilson’s Barns”

This is a wonderful collection of old faded red barns that create a nice subject for interpreting light and shadow.  If you get the light right you won’t need to put in too many details.  It seems to me that the reason painters throw in so many irrelevant details is because they start their paintings without a solid idea of what the main reason for making the specific painting is.  Always have a plan, one that you can state verbally and in a simple statement for example light on the front of brownish red buildings.  That is enough and when you finish match your statement to the painting if they are the same then you win.  How cool is that.Cut around the roofs with the sky trying for a nice varied edge, soft, texture and hard edges.  Brush in the foreground with a light middle value scraping out a few lights to just give  a few clues as to what you are painting.

Mix gray brown color burnt sienna, cadmium scarlet and ultramarine blue and really add enough water to make it a light value, this is an important value and not a very important color.  It must be light enough to say building in light when you paint on the shadows.The shadow color is the same as the light version it is only darken less intense and slightly cooler, so in english I added more pigment and a little more blue.  Keep the brushwork lively and preserve some wonderful highlights inside the shadows.  I applied the dark marks in the weeds with flat scraper or a credit card works too.