Mulberry Farmhouse, Easton, Maryland

The scene is an old abandoned farmhouse in Easton, Maryland. The house is rotting away quickly, I poked around upstairs and the ceiling was caving in from water damage. This is the largest painting I have ever done outside, 18" x 24". I typically do paintings half this size, so this was a new experience for me. I had to paint very fast and loose to get it covered in the few hours that the morning light was available. You can see that it barely fits on my easel. The photo shows how far the sun had changed since I began to paint it earlier in the morning. Just as soon as I finished the last stroke, my relatives showed up from Long Island, New York. I hadn't seen them in many years and we had a nice picnic lunch right on the front lawn of this eerie old spot.

Step 2, Copy of Ingres

Here's the second step of the portrait I am copying by the artist Ingres. This completes the first layer of underpainting. The whole face has been painted in a transparent layer of brown tones. Notice that just the shadow areas have been painted so far. The lighter areas will be painted next using much brighter paint. (Similar to his shirt collar). But the painting will stay in this monochrome tone for the next step. Also notice that the shadow areas of his face are not very dark. Compare the face to the jacket, see how much darker that is ? This is intentional, so the final layers of paint on the face can be built up to rich, colorful tones. This is the way Ingres would have created a portrait, there are many nice examples of his studies and unfinished paintings which are helpful tools to learn from.