Hay bale in the far corner of the field

Here is a lone hay bale that ended up in a nice position near some shade at the far corner of a nearby field.  I like shade on a hot summer morning.

I thought that this scene might make a good painting because it was very simple without a lot of sky and without distant hills -- just a flat field and vertical trees.  There was quite a bit of contrast in the vertical plane, very dark spots in the shadow zone and very bright areas where the sun was directly hitting the foliage.

The scene

Underway

After the drawing that was done in burnt Siena  I started working from the background.  There was glowing bright light behind the trees, so yellow /orange was washed in that area.  The trees were done by shaping with the shadows first, saving the most contrast for the near area.

Since the light was changing steadily, I picked the moment to paint the foreground when the shadows were close to a pleasing shape.  I quickly indicated those shadow shapes with diluted green/brown and then had fun filling in the remaining area with bright yellow orange to help get the eventual sunny look on the field.  The hay bale was worked up using layers of color, think and thin paint, and general fussing around until it looked like the dry textured big  heavy thing that it was.

L'ultimo Rotoballe  o/c   40 x 50cm

River painting

There is a beautiful river (the Orcia) that flows down a wide valley dividing the Siena province from that of Grosseto.  It is here that Monica and I found ourselves on a warm afternoon last year.  We had previously scouted this river and this spot was just right for a picnic and a small painting. 

The scene

The drawing

Underway

The colors here are a bit different than the usual, near the river the trees were slightly silvery.  I was concerned with the moving shadows and those were put down first.  I had to simplify the chaos in the trees on the right side.  I played up the diagonal light/shadow pattern that the afternoon had to offer.

A challenge was to paint the rocks that were under the clear water.  I stayed away from the white and tried to paint the rocks softly and very thinly.  I knew I would be dragging color over these rocks to create the water surface.

Progress

After some work back home I came up with the result below.  It was fun to drag the different blue colors over the surface of the river at the end.  The reflected trees were painted with vertical strokes and were rendered with duller color that was slightly lighter in value than the actual trees.  In the end the different layers come together to produce the illusion of water.

Fiume Orcia  o/panel  8x10in
available at the Stage Door Gallery