Debbie's Porch

Debbie is a fantastic nice lady I met last year in San Francisco. Talking about paintings and reference pictures she graciously sent me a picture of the view off her back porch ... lucky Debbie!

Like the Peppers, this was also painted very much "alla prima", starting with a totally untreated background on a cardboard-for-oils A4.

It took a couple of days as I wanted to layer up a little to avoid mudding the colours when adding the trees in the foreground.

Colours:

• Liquid White

• Raw Umber

• Raw Sienna,

• Cobalt Blue hue

• Ceruleum Blue

• Sap green

• Oxide of Chromium

• Cadmium Yellow hue

• Cadmium Red deep hue

• Flake white

• Paynes grey

• Lamp black

Medium: "alla prima"

• 2 parts Turpentine

• 4 parts Liquin

• 2 parts Damar Varnish

• 2 parts Linseed Oil

This is where I started:

As you can see that was pretty basic, I just wanted to anchor the river shore and the distant mountain.

I then took the courage to put in the big tree on the left, not caring too much about the foliage at this point:

Although still quite basic, it was starting to take shape, but it did indeed need the trees on the left to complete the composition, and I took the "winter to summer approach", planning on adding the leaves later:

And here is the finished painting, where I finished the canopy and dressed the trees on the right, while highlighting a little more the yellow flowers.

Today this painting is happily hanging on my loving aunty and uncle's wall.