I live in a small sized southern Ontario town that is right on the edge of some gorgeous rural areas that are just chock full of farms and fields. Every drive I take in any direction has me passing fields of corn, canola, soybean and pastures dotted with cows, horses, sheep and goats. The region that my town is in is called Halton Hills which is a perfect and accurate definition of this local topography. Hills are absolutely everywhere with roads winding their way up and down them then over small bridges and across curving creeks. It is wonderfully bucolic and exactly what I wanted to capture in my next painting.
I chose to paint in acrylics on a thick and sturdy gallery wrapped 2″ deep canvas. My palette included using quinacridone magenta, naphthol red light, hansa yellow, phthalocyanine green and phthalocyanine blue. These colours really pop and the end results are always radiant and gorgeous.
Starting from left in this series of photos above you can see my methods for creating my farm and fields painting ‘Fun On The Farm’. I started with a solid bright orange background on the canvas. Once that had dried I then dropped in multiple colours overtop letting some of the orange peak through. This is important because if I had started painting into the orange paint while it was still wet it would have all turned into muddy colours. I was purposefully random in my placement of those many added colours. When you paint loosely and intuitively the painting takes on an exciting energy and movement.
I mixed a crisp very dark purple colour from my reds and blues for my contrasting line work. I never use black as I find it is too harsh and deadening in a painting. The lines delineated my horizon, distant trees and the rolling hills in this landscape. Next it was time to add features to the fields of crops. I painted them with some patterns and lines and added extra overlays of colour. I decided to put in a silo and a barn to keep the farmhouse company and tweaked a few areas with a bit more colour. I am delighted with this finished painting as it has hints of abstract with the impact of impressionism.
To see this finished acrylic painting ‘Fun On The Farm’ close up and for more of my paintings please go to my original art watercolour and acrylic galleries on this website.