Steep Hill Blueberry Farm - Class Painting

I painted this barn that is on a blueberry farm called Steep Hill on a beautiful sunny cool August day in Fayette, Maine. I brought my paints and sat in the shade to paint their barn which I have seen every time we come and have always wanted to paint it.  I knew I didn't have much time to paint and had to paint pretty fast because I knew it wouldn't take long for everyone to pick the berries so we could go back to the cabin to make a pie!  This is our very favorite place to go.  There is nothing like a summer in Maine on the lake.

So I started by wetting the paper in the sky area and the left side of the painting up to where you see the the violet part which is the rock wall.  I used a diluted wash of ultramarine blue for the sky areas and also put in a very light green above the barn for the distant trees while still wet.  The light green I made with sap green and winsor yellow.  I then added a darker green into the lighter green with sap green with a little ultramarine in it.  You can see where I added the greens near the trees all wet into wet.  I added raw sienna as the background brush behind the trees.  I let that all dry, then I painted the trees.  I used a few colors:  raw sienna, bluer violet (ultramarine + winsor red), (brownish blue)burnt sienna + ultramarine.  I started with the raw sienna, then while wet, I added the violet on the left side of the tree, being careful to save the raw sienna on the right side.  I added in the brownish blue on top of the violet also while wet.  When the tree was dry I added a darker brownish blue in spots.

I then started to paint the rocks and roof of the barn.  I used ultramarine + raw sienna with much more blue.  One thing I want to point out.  The M. Graham brand of paint has a different color version of raw sienna than Winsor Newton.  It is darker and not so light yellow.  I get a whole different color than those that have mixed ult. blue with the Winsor Newton brand raw sienna.  Some students who used it got a green color and that's not right.  It should be a blueish gray color.  I just put that in very haphazard and blending out the bottom with water.  I put it on the roof very roughly and then touched in some winsor red a bit.  This is where I stopped for now.

Then I worked on the barn.  I used the same color as the base color of the rocks for the front of the barn which is ultramarine and M. Graham's raw sienna.  You can drop in a little raw sienna in places too to vary up the color.  When it started to dry slightly I dragged the back of my thumbnail and scraped it to look like barn siding.  The left side of the barn I used the same color but I added a stronger bit of raw sienna to make it look more golden.

Now I added some darks.  The trees behind the barn I used M. Graham's Hookers Green mixed with ultramarine blue and some burnt sienna.  I loosely painted them in and went down near the flag, adding water to soften.  I also put a little raw sienna into that along the outer edges too to vary the color and make it look a little more sun struck.  I used this same green to do the trees on the left but watered it down and also added winsor yellow to some of the leaves.  All this is done very loosely with scribbly strokes.  Holding the brush away from the ferrel helps.  I also added this green to the grasses along the barn, adding strokes of raw sienna also.  When this dried slightly, I added the darker green around as you can see in the photo.  I also added darks for the front opening doorway of the barn and the left side of the trees using ultramarine + winsor red + burnt sienna.  It creates a deep violet.  The barn opening I painted using this violet halfway down and then  throwing in a strong mix of raw sienna.  I also added this violet along the roof edges as a shadow and in the windows.

Here is a little closer up of the rocks and grasses.  I started adding the darker sides of the rocks with a flat brush with ultramarine blue + winsor red + raw sienna.  That's the 2nd value of dark on the rocks.  Then a deeper value was added by adding burnt sienna to that mix I used for the 2nd value.  I laid in some sap green over some of them also to look a little mossy.  I added the greens and violets on my palette to put in the forground grasses and front grass.  I really just mushed everything together.  A very technical term!  Feel free to drop in different colors here and have fun....but don't go overboard!  I also did some spattering but that's not visible in this photo.  You can go back up to the top picture to see the finished painting.