I’ve been sketching several possible compositions for a commission for a lovely gal in Maryland who needs something special for her new home. Like others who have requested a commission, I ask for photos of the room where the new painting will live.
As with all my works, I start with underpainting. For this particular commission, the patron was hoping for a piece that is not too feminine (so that the husband likes it too) but did wish to have some pinks in the piece to go with a large area rug that anchors the room. So, I’m doing the underpainting in a portrait pink and may have some peeking out from behind here and there. There will also be plenty of these fainter, calming hues in the sky area, which is quite large. The goal is to finish with a very large piece that is soothing but bright and fresh at the same time, without being busy. Tall order but I’m excited to see how it turns out!
Here’s the inspiration watercolor painting that I did years ago and is now hanging on the wall at my cottage in Maine:
So, you can see above the very large canvas with the pink underpainting and the trees and pastures as well as buildings going in. I had to change the buildings in the scene as this will be a vertical hang vs. a horizontal hang. To accommodate the different perspective of the canvas, I needed to simplify the composition a little bit so that there is room for the silos, barns, etc. I’ll add in cloud forms in the coming days after the sky is fleshed out a bit.
There will be about ten layers of paint when all is said and done and I plan to use a bright magenta to echo the highlights on the original work. This will again be a challenge because the original piece was watercolor but I have some ideas to mimic the style with acrylic and possibly a French pastel as well. I thought about some charcoal as I used in the original but am not sure about that yet.
Stay tuned!