Inspired by Green and Blue
I have been keeping an eye on this view of the green house on the pier for many years in hopes that I will get to paint it someday. However there was no safe public area to setup to paint this view. Luckily, this week it was accessible from one of my friend’s porch; I was thrilled.
When composing this painting, I took liberty to change the size of the buildings and the pier to avoid large negative space. The ladder was enlarged, the green house and the pier were shortened and the pillars were simplified. As I was painting this, I realized the green color of the house was very hard to work with. I had to change it to different shades of green multiple times to work with the surrounding. Introducing a much darker color for one of the buildings also helped to balance the green building. I was very happy with the end result, Thursday was a good day.
Friday was the last day for painting this week in Maine. It arrived early. I had done some sketches of the rocks from the ledge on Tuesday and thought it will be a good way to depart from architectural painting for a day. I placed two big rocks first then the surrounding edges were carefully composed to bring in the negative space. Other smaller rocks were naturally formed while painting and there were plenty of variety of rocks lying around for inspiration.
Choosing the right shape of the house took me some time. There were many houses in sight, but to balance the busy and curvy rocks, I thought it needed the simplest house. I ended up using the closest blue house and using windows and its colors from other houses around. A single house seemed too quiet and lonely. I thought of adding a fence, however a utility pole seemed more fitting and whimsical. This painting turned out to be one of my favorite paintings from this week. It was a great way to end a wonderful painting journey in Maine.
Here are all my work from a week of painting trip in Stonington this year. I am already looking forward to my next trip.