the little gate

This painting was done from sketches after returning from a trip on July 19th.  The painting has the date of December 2, 2015.  We were all headed to ElDorado in Dorothy's car for Emma's baptizm at the local pool with a swim afterwards.   This road trip was one week after the trip in which we were stopped on the KTA just after torrential rains flooded the highway.  I have told myself before that it would be better to wait in Emporia than risk trying to get though.       I pieced this painting together from the thumbnail of the gate and one of the barn.  I put them together because I know of at least one such place near here- with the vintage man gate and an old farmstead in the background.  So a bit of creative cutspugh and olah...   I was dealing with a more specific grassy foreground than what I have done recently, so this was a bit experimental.  But it may be good to keep a work on the verge of failure so the mind and senses are at full attention.  As usual, the photograph leaves something to be desired...
Below are some of the preliminary things I did in the process of doing this painting. The finished painting is 11 by 15 inches on Canson 140# paper.

Here are the studies for the completed painting as well as the sketch of the gate done on the road while Stephanie was driving.  I do not always do drawings in such detail as this, but there were many questions about layout I wanted to clarify.  The gate was a new problem for me so I wanted to see how it would work with the foreground grass and the barn, before actually jumping into the painting.  I had some idea in my head before even these sketches.  There are always surprises with watercolor, but I was trying to make sure they were positive ones...  Its like babysitting grand kids-  you know they will surprise you somehow- but it is nice when they are possitive ones!

This is a very fun stage, when you begin to see how things are going together.  I did a full size sketch of the fence and barn just to get the juxtaposition of lights and darks to where it made sense, using thin white tape to delineate the wire by laying it over the top of the sketch in the dark spots. Strange approach I know, but it helped me....