Days Gone By

Much happier with the barn than the last time I tried a building (Purple Splendor), but I ended up making it much bigger than I originally wanted. Which is probably fine except I didn't adjust the size of the footbridge accordingly so the perspective is noticeably off.

I did have a good time with this one despite not being terribly pleased with the outcome mostly because I noticed how much more comfortable with the palette knife I felt than I did just a few paintings ago. Obviously there's still a lot of room for improvement. But using the tools is starting to feel less alien which lets me concentrate more on enjoying the experience and making little corrections and technique refinements here and there.

The other thing I learned on this painting is that it's probably not the best idea to pick episodes where I don't particularly love the outcome of the original. I chose this one because I had the colors for it and it was a chance to do another man-made structure but it's not my favorite Ross painting by far. In particular he rushes the foreground trees at the end and even though I tried to improve them a little using techniques from my attempt at the Silent Forest painting (I don't have to keep this within 30 minutes, after all) they still feel a bit like random afterthoughts.