For landscape painters, there is something so alluring about old ramshackle buildings. They’re full of character, full of potential stories. Contrast that with painting a pristine glass skyscraper. The old shed wins hands down. Often it’s not just the building itself, but the flotsam that washes up around it on the tide of years–an ecology of purpose lost and found.
Richard Robinson, Rustic Farm Shed, oil on canvas, 10 x 12” (25 x 30 cm)In this scene just down the road in New Zealand, it’s all about the shed. It’s really a portrait, with everything else as the stage for it to write out its long story. The softly shadowed plain foreground leads the eye in, and the dark background offers to hold your attention to the bright, crisp details that are contrasted upon it.
Ask yourself in your next painting, what is the star of the show, and in what ways can the rest of the painting be supporting actors?
Student critiques
Mark Price
Ruakaka Barn, oil on panel, 10 x 12” (25 x 30 cm) Nicely done, Mark. Lots of interest here with punchy color and big textured areas contrasting the finer details. One word of advice: keep working on making a mark and then leaving it, rather than overworking it and obfuscating it.
Elena Sokolova
Rustic Farm, oil on canvas, 15 x 18” (38 x 46 cm) Great seeing you do this on a larger canvas with such gusto, Elena. Nicely done. All that expressive brushwork has given this quiet, scene a visceral sense of movement and life. What makes that even more effective is that you’ve slowed down and carefully defined the key elements, so there’s a beautiful contrast between movement and stillness.
Geoffrey Geeson
Rustic Farm Shed, oil on paper Beautifully done, Geoffrey! I think I prefer it to my own. Lots of interesting lyrical brushwork is laid down confidently and left to speak. Intensifying the darks in the foreground has added more gravity to that section, and there’s more to look at—more interest. You’ve made beautiful organic shapes in there too, and throughout–clearly defined like interlocking puzzle pieces. Great work!
Louise Villegas
Rustic Shed, oil on canvas, 8 x 10” (20 x 25 cm) Great idea, Louise, giving yourself an hour to complete this painting. That shows in the expressive brushwork and bold color. I like the effect you’ve achieved in the foreground by softening the brushwork there. It pushes your eye to the other areas that are more in focus with sharper edges. I’ve got three tips for you: 1. Add some color variety into the ground plane with gray browns. 2. Avoid using purple for shadows (like inside the barn), and add yellow or orange to purple to gray it down. 3. Sharpen up the top edges of the barn, because it’s your center of interest so should be in sharp focus.
Nancy Newton
Rustic Farm Shed, oil on canvas, 12 x 12” (30 x 30 cm) Great job, Nancy. Your colors are spot on, and there’s some good expressive brushwork in there, especially in the foreground. The old shed is looking suitably ramshackle, and there’s a nice variety of color and brushwork in the ground plane, which has the potential to be dull if not treated this way. A couple of things that would lift the center of interest even more would be to add more variety in color and value to the wooden fencing and the red doors.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this workshop. Great work!