Farm in Pompey Center, 11 x 19" - reworked

Farm in Pompey Center, pastel on paper by Adriana Meiss

This is another reworked pastel. The original painting, done on location in 2009 is below, and you can read more about it here.

original pastel, done on location

 The first thing one notices is that light in the original pastel is too blue, but that was my fault when taking the photo. The real problem which, I did not see at the time, was that the rows of corn stubs in the foreground pointed to the plowed field in the distant left, thus guiding the eye outside the picture plane. Once I knew what and how to fix it, it was really fun to work on it.

The following are the main changes done:

• the plowed field in the distance was  removed 
• the color and value were adjusted in the distant row of trees 
• ochres were added to the closer row of trees to indicate late afternoon light
• blue and turquoise were added  to the barn
• the direction of the rows was slightly switched to the right in the middle ground to guide the eye towards the barn

So far I think it works and I might frame it soon.

Farm in Pompey Center, on location, 11" x 19"

This early evening scene was painted at the beginning of the fall season. I was able to work on location for an hour and a half before the light was gone, but by then I had almost finished it. Back at the studio I corrected the colors of the trees on the left, and added more detail to the stubble of cut corn.

I was hoping to have more fall scenes painted on location, but the weather is to be blamed for that, as most days had been rainy or cloudy ones. The few paintings I had attempted have not yielded good results, either because I'm not familiar to using reds or because I have not taken into account that light changes so fast at this time of year.