Barns, Bluebonnets, and Barks

This is my first composition of an old barn and it was an absolute blast! I came across this barn exploring a metro park near my home called Commons Ford Ranch. My initial goal was to simply find a new place to explore with my dog, and I was surprised to find this metro park on the map near my home, of which I’ve lived in for decades.

Commons Ford Ranch parkland was donated by Bradley and Wooley, Inc. in 1983, but the historic buildings, including the barn, were from the Resaca Ranch, which was a working cattle ranch in the early 20th century. If you live in the Austin area, I strongly suggest exploring this small park, which has riverfront, hiking trails, and obviously historical elements to enjoy.

After my plein air recon visit with Wolfy, I returned a few days later to do some quick field sketching. Having no experience with barns, I took some time back in the studio doing a more formal drawing, trying to figure out how best to simplify the elements of the barn and ensure I could get the whacky angles figured out. When I finished the drawing I realized the better angle was going to be from the other side of the barn because the tree was a distraction no matter where I put it, seemingly popping out of the barn like a jack-in-the-box gone wrong. But this is why we do sketches and practice drawings, right? 

I spent about 3 hours painting on-site the following week. The weather cooperated for the first 90 minutes, then the clouds rolled in, which threw off some of the preferred lighting. Luckily I took a few reference photos when I first setup and was able to use those back in the studio. I really focused my plein air session on highly contrasting values, something I feel would help improve the realistic nature of my landscapes. 

The studio work went very quickly, which I’m convinced was due to the strength of the values throughout the piece. I was able to convey a more realistic composition with depth. At least that’s my impression. The most tricky bits, which were honestly a bit maddening, were determining the colors for the wood. The gray of the actual barn wasn’t going to make for a very interesting painting, so I went with 20 versions of reddish brown. I used almost exclusively painting knives for the barn, finding ways to maximize wet-on-wet technique to get swirls and variations in the wood panels, giving them (hopefully) a more aged look. Lastly, using the edge of the painting knife, I applied somewhat random crisp black lines to get a more realistic look to the slats and slight gaps between the wood.  

The addition of wildflowers was a suggestion from my wife, which I think adds a nice pop of central Texas spring to the piece. These were also done with a knife, using scraping and splotching techniques. 

Overall, the Commons Ford Ranch Barn was a great introduction to this type of landscape feature that lends itself nicely to en plein air. 

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