"Days Gone By"

I had a large class scheduled at a "local"school ( local?-35 miles away ) today, but the weather is terrible and school closed early. So, we re-scheduled for next week. Therefore, I ended up with some unexpected "paintin' time", which is always a welcome opportunity.

Since I love to paint old barns, it wasn't hard to pick a subject. Initially, I had thought of a winter theme, but after looking out the window at the blizzard taking place, I reconsidered. The "greens" in this one let me escape for a couple of hours. lol

This was underpainted in an Acrylic "grisaille", followed by Oil glazes and opaque passages. ( similar to my Dvd techniques ) It's a great way to get extra detail when working wet-in-wet.

I'm a firm believer in having a strong focal point in a painting, so I tried to emphasize the corner of the barn where the light and shadowed sides meet. Making this spot brighter and more dominant brings the viewer's eye to that area and "into" the painting. The tree limb in the upper right helps to frame everything in, as well as lead the eye to the subject.

Maybe next time I'll do the "winter barn".