Plein Air Through The Back Door

I wanted to work from life but also wanted to stay in where it was warm, so I stood at my kitchen door and painted part of the scene in front of me.

I call it, "Looking Out My Back Door" with apologies to CCR.

Looking Out My Back Door
Watercolor
Linda Harbison

I literally stood looking out the back door to paint it. A while back at the artists of The Renaissance Art Gallery were talking about finding subject matter near at hand to where ever you happen to be. As usual, I can't remember who said what, but the idea of not making a special trek to some special place to find a worthy subject stuck with me. So I decided to try to find things to paint in my own neighborhood. I live in Flatwoods Kentucky, on top of a hill. My neighborhood is a collection of identical ranch houses. So when I look outside, I see the rooftops of all these simple, rectangular houses. There is also a baseball field in the distance, though you can only see part of a dugout from this point of view. I took several sessions to sketch the scene directly on watercolor paper. Since I had the luxury of seeing it every day, I watched the light from morning to evening to see when it was most interesting. It turned out that late afternoon to early evening light was the most dramatic, so I painted between about 3:30pm and 5pm.

~Linda Harbison, Artist

The Renaissance Art Gallery

 

Note:

 

This and other pieces by Linda Harbison are now hanging and on display at the Renaissance Art Gallery

 900 8th Street, Suite 20,

Huntington, WV