And More Cottages! Wells-Shober
“Wells-Shober Cottage” 12×12, oil
Did my last post say that the Roosevelt cottage at the Roosevelt-Campobello International Park is the ultimate challenge? I think I was wrong. Today I painted the Wells-Shober cottage, and I have to say it was even more of a challenge. The issue is the corner porch, which is circular, and the room at the corner, which is also circular! I chose to paint the cottage in a square format (12×12), which forced me to zoom in on the cottage to get a workable composition. As you can see, this minimizes the curve. It’s still there, but because you’re looking at a small portion of it, it’s not as noticeable – just as you don’t notice the curve of the earth.
This painting also has a cool light source. As I was painting, a thin fog ran overhead, cooling the sunlight. This made, to me, the shadows seem warm. I even pushed the warmth a bit by putting Cadmium Red Light into the shadows. I pushed the cool of the sunlit whites by using Phthalo Green.
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Those round porches can be a challenge, but you succeeded. It is totally convincing. I like it very much.