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In Times Gone By a digital watercolour in progress by Joan A HamiltonIn Times Gone By ... Sketch and Values
This is the beginning sketch and rough idea of values for this painting of an old forgotten barn. I used the Real Soft 6B pencil in the Pencil category and it was really nice to sketch with. It has a smooth easy feel to it, if you know what I mean! The sky was roughly done with John Derry's Gel Wash and Rough Blender from his Watercolour brush set. The bubbly edge is from when I reduced the size, it isn't there in my actual sketch. I also used the Wet Softener to soften edges and remove some colour in the clouds.
I have seen similar scenes so many times in Northern Ontario. Seems like there are more derelict farms than working farms, and I have often wondered at how hard it must be to make a farm pay in the harsh climate and short growing season. Both my parents grew up on farms in the Christian Valley area of northern Ontario and can attest to how difficult it was.
Next I have to choose a colour palette and being the literal person I am I will probably use colours that are fairly realistic for this image. An easy way to get a nice colour palette is to find a painting with the colours you like and create a new colour set from that image in the Colour set menu.
 I resized my image back to 11.5 x 15.25 2oo dpi, dropped the layers to canvas, copied and pasted to a new layer, deleted the canvas layer and locked the Sketch layer. I did this because I don't want to paint on this layer or have it part of my actual painting. It is for my reference only.
 As I sketched and chose my colour palette I was also thinking about the mood and story I wanted to portray. The obvious story is the dereliction and sense of failure the image evokes, but it also expresses a certain kind of strength and determination. Whoever built this barn must have been hardworking and hard headed to even attempt to make a life this way. This is part of my history. My own grandparents emigrated to the Christian Valley and built barns and farmed land such as this.
On a more artistic and technical level I was mindful of the shapes and the movement of the painting. There are harsh edges and jagged shapes moving across the painting which reinforce the idea of ruggedness. The colours are sombre and the sky is stormy which illustrates the severity of the environment which has a 'terrible' sort of beauty to it. The focal point will be around where the sticking out roof top meets the sky. I would like to get across the idea that man and nature compete for dominance, but that man can never alter the forces of nature. Okay, I think that's enough yakking about it…best get on to painting it!
 Top Sky layer of In Times Gone By by Joan A Hamilton
To paint this area of the sky I used the following brushes and techniques. The illustration is done in a new document to show the steps more clearly.
  2. Chose Italian Watercolour in the Papers Palette and set the controls to as illustrated here for a nice watercolour paper texture. 3. Change the Composite Layer to Overlay and presto you have a texture layer that will never change even if you blend paint because it is on a different layer. More like a real piece of paper!
End of Part One...to be continued tomorrow. If you have any questions or would like to make a comment feel free to use the Contact form to ask me!
Related postsCommentsBarb Hartsook said: What a wonderful tutorial and WIP, Joan. Anxious to see this one completed. :)
Friday, June 25th
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Jackie Jacobson said:
Joan
You are way too generous a person, but here's a big thanks for your unbelievable generosity. It is much appreciated and very unique, that you are willing to share every little secret that you have for creating wonderful art.
We...I speak for all of us who adore your artwork...really appreciate YOU.