Follow the Light

"Late Afternoon in the Valley" - oil painting

© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

We've had some strange light the past couple days due to forest fires up in northern Saskatchewan I guess...it might give some very unusual photographic landscapes opportunities but I decided to stay inside and work on a small painting from the valley a few miles south of us.

Light is pretty important in painting, photography or any visual expression I'd think.  This painting has been an idea for a couple years and finally made it out of my mind...I liked the light, a late fall afternoon...shadows getting longer and a warmer contrast/effect if-you-will.  I also love bales and this one had both rectangular and round bales...those geometric shapes you just don't find in the landscape until baling time!

I struggled a bit with this painting because I wanted to depict the barn in its current decline; the roof is about 1/3 gone...it appears to have been re-roofed over the original cedar shakes, with red asphalt shingles...possibly 40-50 years back.  But every time I tried depicting holes in the roof and the peeling asphalt shingles, it just wasn't working for me...I also felt it was detracting from the pleasant feel I remembered from the landscape itself.  So I "fixed" the roof.  Hey...I've spent so much time working on our own outbuilding's roofs that I figured I could do some good in the painting too!

The cupola is partially gone however and I left it the way it now sits. 

Hmmm, speaking of "our" roofs, I'd better get busy around here...nah, plenty of time right?! I think I'll follow the light!