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Photo #1. This is the first of four photos taken to gain source material for the painting. I liked the dog, which was an accident (she follows me everywhere), and the framing foilage on the right. The photo didn't show enough of the new addition on the back however.
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Photo #2. This was a much better view of the house and had the added advantage of the "Y" shaped sidewalk leading the eye toward the front door even though it's barely visible in the photo.
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Photo #3. Here I digitally moved the dog from the earlier photo to the end of the sidewalk, then trimmed back the shrubbery to better show the front entrance, the light post and the three-car garage. |
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Final composite photo. The foilage on the right was borrowed from the first photo as well as some more foilage near the top of the photo to maintain the approximately 2:1 ratio of width to height. The final painting would be 16"x30" I also digitally filled in the wooden shingles on the balcony which had washed out of the photos.
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The Drawing on canvas. Although it's a little difficult to see, the composite print-out of the three photos was next drawn onto the canvas. Drawings don't photograph well and do even worse when digitized, especially when I wanted to keep the drawing light so as not to get a lot of pencil graphite into my paint.
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Second stage. I have always painted landscapes from the top down so here, we see the sky and some of the surrounding hills layed in on either side of the house. The painting was done in acrylics over a period of three days. Once the computer work was done on the photo the actual painting and drawing time amounted to about 5 hours.
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Third stage. Here the trees to the left and right of the house were filled in as well as the trunks of the trees in front of the house. Some preliminary, loosely painted foilage was added using a transparent watercolor technique with the acrylics for softness.
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Fourth stage.The front yard has been roughed in, starting to give the painting its basic structure and establish the overall coloration of the fall scene.
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Fifth stage. The dark bluish driveway has been added along with additional dark foilage on the right completing the peripheral area of the painting. The house was saved until last so that there would be as little white canvas remaining as possible. This avoids color distortion which may occur if the environment is not established first.
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Sixth stage. Work has now begun on the house itself with all blank walls and the roof layed in. The color in this scan is somewhat distorted towards the reds and blues for some reason. The next photo is the most accurate color representation.
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Seventh stage. The house is, for the most part, done, leaving only the dog to be completed. Additional leaves were added both on the ground and in the trees as well as details added to the foilage on the right.
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Final painting. Once the dog was added, some minor touch-up work was done that probably is too minor to show up in the scanned pictures. The painting has been entitled Fileena's Place. She looks like she OWNS the place, or at least THINKS she does.
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