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Sunday, June 7, 2009

The Old Stone House

My latest project is a painting for my sister. She lives in Virginia and owns a beautiful stone house that was built in 1778. There have been a lot of renovations done to the house but most of the house has been historically preserved as it was back in the 1800's. It is an amazing house.

I accepted her offer to paint the house without reservation. It is a stunning combination of old world architecture against a modern yet well preserved landscape.

Although the project will be exciting for me, it will also challenge my skills as a painter in several ways: First, since we live 300+ miles apart, I'll be working from photos of the place without a readily available physical reference to work from. Secondly, the family wants to use an elegant antique frame to house the new painting. The frame once hung over the fireplace in the house. Although that doesn't seem too difficult to do, the logistics need to be considered when the painting is done here in the Western Appalachian Mountains and then hung in a frame in Virginia. Lastly, I will be painting the house using water soluble oil paints, which I have only recently become trained to use.

The original landscape surrounding the house has gone through many years’ worth of change, but remains rural for the most part. Only a very few buildings are present in the neighborhood, that weren't probably there when the house was first occupied. By using my "artist license" some of those objects can fade naturally into the background or disappeared entirely.





With a handful of photographs my sister and brother-in-law choose the scene they wanted. It is a winter photo they took of the house, which we all agree will yield a typical style of painting that might have been rendered years ago; a painting that will show off the home and surrounding estate. The winter scene is somewhat stark so they have asked that I paint the house in somewhat "
muted" colors.

The first step in the process will be to prepare a color study of the painting. This will give my sister and husband a rough idea of the painting and provide me with some color and layout options. I can't wait to get started.

L8ter,

Wetbrusher

1 comment:

  1. I hope you will continue to give us progress on this painting project and what a wonderful adventure in art.

    ReplyDelete