The Farmhouse Revisited

Yeah! I’m painting again, after having to sacrifice my painting time to other priorities during much of 2011. I’m delighted to be back at it, and my New Year’s resolution was to finish a partially completed commission by the end of January. Here it is, my newest painting, “The Lewis Farmhouse.” It might look familiar, since this is the second painting I’ve done of this home. The first painting (shown in my previous blog post, called “Mamaw & Papaw’s House”) was so loved by the recipient Alison’s mother, Margaret, that she wanted her own original painting… after all, it is the house she grew up in!

So after discussing details like what the house looked like years ago, what angle to depict it from, and what time of year to set it in, I aimed at creating a painting which would be different from the first one while faithful to Margaret’s memories. In fact, I purposely didn’t even look at the photos I had kept of the first farmhouse painting, just to keep my head clear.

The finished painting shows the farmhouse in a summer setting, with the rusting roof, porch swing, pots of flowers, and circular drive as Margaret requested. Now both Margaret and Alison are each happy owners of portraits of the house which brings them so many memories. I finally looked back at the first house portrait, and was pleased that I had made two distinctly different images.

I’m on a roll and working on two watercolors now, so I’ll be posting more new work soon ;-))