We're on a road to nowhere

 "On the edge of nowhere"
Oil on Panel, 10 x 8 inches
Sold

This is another of the little buildings on our local showgrounds and I think a small business like an accountant or solicitor runs shop from here.  Though that's not what piqued my interest. 

The reason this scene caught my eye was in part because I wanted to paint a back lit hedge with those vibrant sunlit greens running across the edge.  Mostly however it was because I was looking for simple overlapping shapes which describe a landscape.  This scene delivered.  And I liked how almost everything was in the foreground and then the space just opens up beyond the building.  It feels like the building might be on the last one on the way out of town into nowhere.

Below is the small 10 x 8 cm sketch which preceded the painting and the source photo.  So much about achieving the final work is narrowing the view, eliminating objects, and simplifying.  A process that doesn't ever really end until you finally put the brush down.

And that can take some time.  This painting has been on the shelf for five or six months.  I went back to it and fiddled a little bit.  I removed a small hedge on the middle-left still visible in the drawing and source photo.  Mucked about with the shadows on the ground to lighten them and soften edges.  Added some purple in there just because.

I'm pretty happy with the result here and I'm keen to try this one again at a larger scale.  If there was anything I would do differently it would be to spend more time on my greens to get a better feel for them and produce more of a varied range.

To see what colours were on my palette go to a related post about my palette and colours.