Red Skies At Night

March 20, 2011 - 16" x 20", Acrylic on stretched canvas

This painting was never meant to be. 

For my previous painting (West Entrance), I painted the wrapped part of the canvas a dark mahogany to match the wood in the church.  I had a hard time mixing the color and had a lot more than I needed.  So I covered a 16" x 20" canvas with it, then added streaks of black while it was still wet.  I figured I'd use it as a wood background to a still life, oriented vertically.  When I painted the "top" and "bottom" I left it on it's side to dry.  I walked into the room a little later and what I saw was an ominous sky.  So I kept it that way.

I found an old farm house, "fixed it up" and transferred the image to the "sky".  I added defoliated trees and dark, "over-winter" looking shrubs behind, using raw umber, burnt sienna, sap green and a touch of titanium white.  I painted the house using cerulean blue with: 1. cad yellow and white for the roof; 2. cad red and white for the walls and trim.  Finally I added the grass by stabbing the canvas with a small, stiff bristled, straight brush, mixing in sap green, white and raw umber.

My wife calls it the "haunted house."