Armand Cabrera
I had the pleasure of doing a demo for the art group at Firnew Farm Thursday afternoon. Trish Crowe was very gracious letting me come out to their beautiful property and paint, and I think we had about 40 people or more show up.
I chose a 24x36 canvas and the painting time for this demo was 3 hours.
The scene is the corn crib between the main house and Trish’s studio. Because the angle of the sun and its relationship to the scene I had fairly consistent light over the time I was painting.
I decided the placement and size of the elements for the painting. One of my decisions is to leave out the main house on the left since it would be cut in half on the canvas and be a distraction.
I quickly draw my scene and establish my shadow pattern. I am working fast because of the size of the canvas and my unfamiliarity of the place. I would normally paint a small sketch first to get a feel for the lighting shifts during the day before tackling something this size but I didn’t have time for that here.
After the drawing I block in everything with a middle shadow tone. I arrive at this tone by squinting to get just the big shapes of color and value.
I proceed to finish the painting in the time I have left, adjusting values and adding the lights and information to the initial masses.
The Corn Crib 24 x36, oil on canvas. Although this demo is looser than I usually paint I have captured the light and essence of the scene. I can now use this as a basis for a studio version knowing the colors and values will be accurate something a photo could never give me.