Lisa Stauffer, PSA-Master and IAPS-Eminent Pastelist, shares the story behind her painting of a barn that caught her eye from the highway.
Painting of the Week: “Time Rolls On”
By Lisa Stauffer
lisastauffer.com
I usually notice a building or landscape for the strong abstract composition that I can create from it. I enjoy designing a painting with the inspiration provided by windows, doors, and light and shadow patterns. I really like subjects that show a patina of age or wear, which allows me to lead a viewer’s eye around the composition with subtle temperature shifts within color/value fields – this barn had it all!
It reads as a white barn but I did not use white; it is higher in key but there is enough pigment in the individual lighter colors to allow warm to cool transitions that let me bring attention to some areas of the barn creating visual movement and rhythm. Add in the rusting wagon wheels with their cast shadows and strong light on the foreground grasses, and I had to paint this barn.
I wanted a sunny day and needed morning light for this painting, so I asked the property owners for permission, then returned during a plein air painting competition when the conditions were right. My planning paid off. “Time Rolls On” went on to win awards and now resides in a private collection.
I happened to drive this road again afterward and saw that the wheel rims are gone; often a barn I have seen or a tree that I notice has fallen down before I return to a spot, so my advice is to paint these beauties when you find them!
As the painting title insinuates, sometimes we lose a favorite barn or landmark. All of the visual information in front of us as we compose a painting en plein air allows us to continue honing our skills as painters, so let’s all get out there and paint!
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Blog post prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Plein Air Today
