Northwest Watercolors
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Featured Artist – Laura Brown

Hess’ Barn
(Dixonville, Oregon)

© Laura Brown. All rights reserved by artist to images and text.
As many artists, I feel a responsibility to paint the historic barns that are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I do not believe that the Hess barn is in use, except possibly for storage in the smaller rear portion of it. While painting this piece over a 3-day weekend, sweat poured down my back and a horse–fly entered my vehicle to torment my legs. I certainly knew I was in the country.

This particular barn was a challenge because the roof actually tapers where most roofs are parallel. I do work with a ruler while laying out the drawing part of my paintings, but only in order provide a few straight edges to make it easier to mat later on. Also, I do not want the viewer to be distracted by a slanting part of a structure when it is supposed to be vertical. There is a fine line between being too lazy to use a ruler in the drawing stage and over using it to create more of the feel of an architectural rendering.

Your average viewer sees the Dixonville hills as brown in summer, but I see shades of yellow and purple. This was my first piece where I felt I dealt effectively with foreground weeds. I like detail in the foreground, but I believe in painting it abstractly rather than painting in each stem.

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