Progress on Lake House

Ok, here we go.  It dawned bright and beautiful today - a good day to work on this painting at Riverbend Farm Lakehouse.  Today, I worked on my cows.  Black Angus cows.  I did get them blocked in last week amidst the cloudy weather so today I worked on modeling the musculature and bone structure.  Here's where I left off last week.  Sorry some of the photos have a bit of a sheen on them - the paint can be shiny when wet and I'm also painting near a window...

Above, I begin by cleaning up the edges of the drawings of the cows.  I look at my snapshots of them, and carefully draw their outlines in, paying attention to measurements, placement of legs in relation to other legs... it's a continuous looking back and forth, back and forth, measuring with the end of my brush, etc. until I feel the drawing is correct.

Pay attention to the direction the sun is coming in and in this case, it's coming from above left.  The objects in the painting will all cast their shadows short and to the right and back just a bit - kind of like 1:00 or 2:00 o'clock.  Shadows also must follow the lay of the land or whatever object they are falling on.  My cows don't have tails yet.  I'm going to add them after the paint on their bee-hinds has dried a bit.  Can't let the paint get muddy - then it'll look like our cows have the "scours"... just sayin'...

When I took the cows' photos, they were munching happily on their grass.  They would raise their heads and look at me and then go back to their chewing...

This is a good start on the cows.  It took me a couple of hours to get this far.  Stop and eat lunch, let Bug out, and then get back to work.

Today I also worked on the sky a bit.  Until this painting is completely finished I will continue tweaking until I'm satisfied with it.  I usually put a painting away for a couple of weeks and then look at it again.  Then I can see some things that I missed.  Another way of checking to see if your painting is working is to hold it in the bathroom mirror and look at it backwards.  You wouldn't believe how helpful this is to see it like that.  You can check your design, your contrasts, your actual drawing...

A little more tweaking on the clouds, putting in some really bright highlights where the sun hits the edges of the clouds...

Above, this is what I did today.  It's looking pretty good, I think, and I'm pretty satisfied with it thus far - especially since it's been awhile that I've painted.  I guess you don't forget, and perhaps I'm being abit more careful and paying more attention trying to remember what I learned long ago...

I've got fences to add that will help lead your eye through the painting.  More tweaking on the cows and let's not forget their TAILS.  Note to self - need to make the shadows under the cows follow the lay of the land.  It's sloping a bit and the shadows look like it's flat and straight land.  As you can tell, there were big towering trees behind me when I took the picture.  But that's actually a good way to frame a painting and break up the big expanse of grass in the foreground.

Hey, thanks for looking.  I appreciate your comments - good or bad. I can take constructive criticism and when I get close to being done, I take my paintings to one of my artist friends and have her give me a critique.  I do that for her, too.  Helps to get a fresh eye to take a look.  I'll be back soon, I hope!  Lord willing, we'll keep having some good weather this week so I can paint!  Take care~~~~~