This painting was all about values.
Looking at the scene from my seat in the kitchen, it took a lot of careful inspection to understand the value relationships between the foreground (anything inside the kitchen) and the background (anything outside through the window).
My first insight came from adjusting my perspective by moving the leaves with a highlight on them into the same field of vision as the very bright white roof frame in the background. It’s easy to see it here in this painting, but seeing it from life is trickier… To my surprise, they were the same value! This brightest value was the first to be mixed and from there I progressively mixed darker and darker for the outside scene, then moved inside where all of the values are darker than any through the window (aside from highlights)
The first brush strokes to go down were the bright green leaves where I wanted to preserve that intensity. I put down nearly the whole plant and left a good amount of my underpainting sketch behind. This wasn’t intentional… It was simply intuitive! I noticed the underpainting showing through after I had finished and was taking a closer look. I’m taking this as another sign that my daily practice is really adding up to improved skills.
My favorite part of this painting is not how it came out… Although I am VERY pleased with that part. In order, here’s what rings the most:
1) I painted it with Sarah. It’s such a gift to have her as a friend. We had a deep conversation about our lives and I can’t remember most of what we talked about (I do remember returning to the idea “compare yourself to who you used to be, not to other people”) but I know it made me feel at peace. Thank you Sarah for being such a good listener, a vulnerable storyteller, and just a good person. I really love and respect and admire you and the way you live your life.
2) I made the most of a rainy gloomy day. This painting was a beautiful spot in a gloomy day and it’s immortalized now! That’s the gift of painting. You can preserve beautiful moments that lifted your spirits.
3) Okay, here’s the point about how the painting came out. I’ve always wanted to do a window painting and capture that light coming through. It worked! It’s working! And it wasn’t a (very) torturous process! (Sarah can tell you how much I agonized over getting the lines straight on the window sill and house in the background). I’m so pleased to continue to see progress and depth in my paintings as I continue this practice.
