Shed On Matt Road

For two weeks now I have successfully created two early morning hours for painting. For a non-morning person this is a shocking accomplishment.

Anyway, for week one I tackled the Shed on Matt Road. I just had to paint that red roof! It was also a simple enough picture for a beginner. I struggled with the composition in thumbnails, as the more foreground I included to make the dirt road the 'S' armature for the eye, the smaller the shed became and the more the whole composition looked like a Bavarian mural. So finally I left only a smidge of road as an entrance for the eye and focused on the shed with the encroaching shrubbery.

I've been living with this result for over a week now. Over all I'm not in love with it. It's a little cartoon-ish. The Princess tree, which really is a monster, looks a little too Dr. Seuss for what I had in mind.

Update: December 16, 2009
So I've been living with this one for five or six weeks now. I expected to like it less every day, but surprisingly, it's growing on me! Kind of has a simple charm about it. The Dr. Seuss trees (which look a great deal like the photo reference) allow me to take it with a bit of whimsy.

I do have a whimsical perspective sometimes. I just had no idea that it would creep into my work.

Ah, well. moving on to my first experience with Kitty Wallis sanded paper! I may revisit this shed to see if I can get a different 'look' from the same subject.