Peeking House

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“Peeking House” 8″x10″ oil on linen panel. Plein air.

Another trip to paint west of Houston yielded this little 8″x10″ of this white house peeking out from behind a study in green trees. The sun was hitting that house just right, the shadows made some nice abstract designs on the house. And the line of trees in front of the house had about every color green there is. Well, not really, but it was a good exercise in mixing a lot of different greens. And the most important things about mixing those greens was seeing all the different greens. The more I studied this scene the more greens I saw.

My painting buddy Myrrh and I have driven past this house a couple of times since we painted it and it never looks the same. It is amazing how one scene can look so different at a different time of the day or under changing weather conditions. It didn’t take us long to discover that if we saw something we thought would make a good painting we needed to paint it right then. If we made a note of where it was (dubious at best, we’re not always sure exactly where we are) and came back later to paint it, it just wouldn’t look the same. And besides, once we leave a location there are way too many other beautiful things to paint so we really never go back anyway.

Ha! If you can come up with a better name for this painting than “Peeking House”, please leave me a comment!

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