I chose this painting because it is small and simple, and I like figures in a landscape. The sky is brilliant yellow, and the figure in the foreground is in shadow. After getting the initial drawing on there, I painted the sky a gray-blue, because that color seems to be peeking out from under the yellow. I got some paint all over, just to get the white gesso covered. I'll work on the figure next week - it looks as though Homer painted her first, and then painted the landscape around her, so that's what I'll do. I love the little building in the background, with its simple door and window and its quick little figures sketched in beside it.
Day 2 - got a late start, so I only painted about 2 hours today, but I made pretty good progress. I'm working on getting her dress dark enough in value, but not too dark or muddy. I don't have the colors right yet. Today there were crowds and crowds of people in my room!
I finally got back to the gallery - hadn't been there since July! Anyway, getting back to this painting today, I realized that I was heartily sick of it. I saw a lot of problems with the drawing, but I didn't feel like fixing them. I put in as many details as I could stand, corrected the color of the water, worked a little on the people, and declared it "finished". I'm looking for my next painting to copy.
