This is the first of three barns painted for a developer in Blacksburg, VA before they were torn down at 'Cow Hill'. I picked this one out to write about because it was the first I'd been out painting on site in a long time. I painted it under an umbrella on a fairly hot day in the bed of my truck. The entire painting was on site. We had a good snow here a few days ago and I was out freezing my fingers off trying to take pictures late afternoon. I do most of my painting by photo rather than life; this is opposite of school where all painting was from life. That works for horses and dog portraits since I would not be able to focus on a single composition painting in life. Landscape on the other hand changes more slowly (light of day) and drawing a landscape from life verses a photo is completely different. There are no boundaries other than what your eye sees. That allows more flow and feel than painting from a photo. That's what makes this painting special to me. It's spontaneous and free flowing. I would love to go out and paint the valley today but I'm afraid my paint would be frozen in minutes. So maybe I'll wait for spring.
If it's not obvious I love Matisse's paintings in early 1900's along with Van Gogh in the south France landscape.
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