Before and After, Debbie's Place

Debbie's Place, Hopland CA, oil, 11x14

This painting was started as a plein air painting in 2007. Debbie was a neighbor of my in-laws up the road in rural Hopland CA. I regularly brought my plein air gear when visiting and did many paintings over the years of this area. Debbie raised these sheep for their wool which she sold to weavers all over the country. I have sold many paintings of her sheep! This was one of my more adventurous paintings from that time period. My vantage point is looking down the hill from behind the fence, standing on the side of the dirt road that is basically one lane. Traffic was not usually a problem.

I recently reworked it yet again as I can't seem to get it where I want it. I think it is as good as it is going to get. When I can't get motivated to paint on the current round of canvas's I have going, revisiting an unsold painting is an easy way to get me interested. Nothing is ever finished around here until it goes out the door! There is a wedding in the family coming up and I was wondering if I should do a new painting for the happy couple or one that the bride would relate to from her childhood. That was the motivation on picking this particular piece to revisit. Some of the photos below are darker than the painting would have been due to the changing digital photo technology but they are not tampered with.

Original, plein air, 2007

First Revision, 2008, looks like a yellow filter! but not

It looks like I corrected some of the drawing on the sheep's shed and took out the blues and dark greens from the grassy hill. I wonder if that was shadows from the trees originally as the roadway was bordered by trees? It is too long ago now for me to know what is was that I was doing as the photo I took has the hillside in sun.

Second Revision, 2011

I have not included the 3rd or was it the 4th revision as it is very similar to the second except I added the dark sheep in the middle ground in the middle. The original plein air is not as bad as I expected it to be, but then, I have a history of not liking what I do on site and can't keep my hands off of it. Either I wipe it off then and there or I keep finding fault in it. I have gotten better about these high expectations over the years, but I don't paint outdoors as much and I have learned the hard way that they are not normally as bad as I think they are if I let them sit for awhile. Those painting that do end up being as bad as I thought, I have been painting over, which I enjoy doing.