Saturday, June 29, 2013

Woodland Avenue - SOLD

Commissioned Piece - NFS
9x12 Acrylic on canvas panel

This is one of two house paintings I had to do recently. Both are commissioned pieces from my Oradell homes project. Both paintings are for the same person - and since I don't believe she is reading my blog, I am posting them. I will be delivering them to the library (the drop off/pick up location) next week.

Both houses are very different from each other, which you'll see tomorrow when I post the second one. This is the newer of the two homes, and it has a "younger" landscape. Both houses gave me challenges, but both were fun also!

I decided to do a straight on view of the home, since it showed the front door so well. I like when paintings of homes show the front door, it seems inviting. This one had the added bonus of the front walk, leading the viewer (& visitor) right up to the front door. Very inviting!

With houses, it's always a toss up - how much detail do you put into the painting. Houses have lots of details. Shingles on rooftops, window frames & panes, curtains, bricks & wood, siding, doors - the list goes on & on. Leaving out all the detail will make a house look very blah, while putting too much of the details in will make it busy & buzzy.

When you see a home in person, your eye focuses on different portions of the home while other areas are just not as prominent. If you are looking at the roof you will not see the brick work. You'll know it's there, but it doesn't stand out. And vice versa, staring at the bricks and you won't notice the shingles as well. So the challenge with a painting, where do you put the focus points? And there is more than one.

Not to be confused with the focal point, which in this house is the front door. It's in the "sweet spot" on purpose. But then I looked at the textures & details of everything around it. I did details to the bay window or it would have looked like an off-white blob on the front of the house. I added the lines of the bricks but kept them very subtle. The wood boards on the top level only have a hint of their lines showing, while the vertical boards over the right side of the house are barely noticeable. I did put in the scallop edge below them though. I kept the roof simple - flat color, no textures but some shading & light casts. The garage door shows the details of the indents & windows without going overboard on the lines & hardware.

Once the house was done it was the landscaping. The background trees were done before the home, as a backdrop for the setting. The foreground shrubs & plants, along with the lawn, anchor the whole image. Once they were in the entire scene came together. The final steps are to add the darkest darks & lightest lights - the shadows & light spots.

I am very happy with this painting and I hope the woman who commissioned it is as well.

1 comment:

Autumn Leaves said...

It sure is a beautiful home, Nancie! You did a wonderful job!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...