River cottage

This is my latest painting, River Cottage, acrylic on canvas. It may not be quite finished. I'll set it aside for a few days and work on something else, then decide. I always put quality above quantity and because of this I sometimes take longer on a painting than I expect. Some only take an hour while others can take weeks, months, even years.

With this one it took a long time because I kept changing my mind as to what I wanted. The cottage was for sure but the type of wood and roof kept changing. The danger in making too many changes is that the painting can look over worked. I was lucky here. It doesn't look over worked and that is because I applied the paint very thin and used gesso for white instead of white paint. White paint is transparent while gesso is not. Therefore you can apply it thinner and it will still cover.

The roof started out being red which is the complement of green. Using compliments make good paintings. However I decided to change it to a darker color to create a mood with just a touch of mist behind the cottage. It's off season and no one is there. I didn't want it bright and cheery when no one's there. It surrenders itself to nature and whatever may come next. I mixed purple with most colors and I always worked all over the canvas at the same time rather than just one portion of it. That way and by always using purple in my colors I was able to achieve a uniform mood throughout the painting.

Brushes varied in size from a script brush to a two inch painting brush that you can buy in any hardware store. As long as the brushes are made well enough that the bristles don't fall out, you don't always need to spend a lot of money on brushes. The in-between sizes are fine artist's brushes and they are expensive. You need these too.