Works in Progress
This particular composition was designed for Dyson and Susan of Hillcrest Winery. As my wife and I stayed in the loft of the winery, I was trying to capture three key elements that struck me at the winery. First, of course, was the winery itself, the vineyards and this fine old Chevy pickup that was resting out in one of their fields. You will see in the image that I have masked out around the edges of the pickup to allow for easy, loose sweeps for the background forest.



Again, it was necessary to mask out the flowers, Hillcrest lettering and the light fixture, leaving me free to sweep a large 1" flat brush down the length of the boards and battens. You may notice the speckled highlights on the battens, this was achieved by carefully swiping them with candle wax before applying the mixture of burnt sienna, french ultramarine, and rose madder. The hand implements were quite rusty, so I use indian red, cadmium orange and a little french ultramarine. And for the handles, I used a damp brush to lift a little of the barn board color - let it dry, then deepen the shadow side with burnt sienna and french ultramarine.

The old Chev was a lot of fun. I figure it is around a 47' and carried an original "dusty" olive color with lots of rust trim. Keeping with the palette I used cadmium orange and french ultramarine for the olive color of the truck, followed by a little dry brush work with rust colors and call it good before it is too over worked.





The gravel drive needed to be one of the lightest values. After a light wash of naples yellow and a cobalt/burnt sienna blend, I splattered the drive with bleed proof white that was blended with naples yellow. This splatter became the sunny side of gravel on the drive. Then by casting a shadow using a blend of french ultramarine and burnt sienna, the illusion of gravel became apparent. In conclusion, I increased the value of some of the boards and battens. Done