Work in Progress, Seven Sisters Inn, Update 8

In this week’s update I’ve painted in the sign, the low stone wall, added more washes to the driveway, the sidewalk and road, painted in the back porch and added the shadow from the foreground live oak.

            The sign in the front yard is normally covered up from this vantage point from a large, six to seven foot sago palm in the corner where the side and front low wall meet. I elected to diminish the sago to about two feet so the sign would be fully visible and the palm wouldn’t interfere with the House. The color of the sign was also changed a little. The original color is a bright cerulean blue. I tried that but it was too bright and competed with the House for attention, so I subdued it some by diluting it. The color is there but a bit washed out so the House remains the center of attention. I added the lettering and image to the sign but kept it low key. If you look close the name is there. I’m still mulling over whether to increase the detail on it, so I’m leaving that decision until the end.

            The low wall was completed with a combination of paynes gray and raw umber, going over and over with washes and slowly adding detail.

            I added a couple more light washes of raw umber to knock down the whiteness of the concrete driveway, walk and road, then added in the shadow from the foreground tree. The shadow was painted in with paynes gray, raw umber and then a combination of winsor blue and burnt sienna to get the gray. At one point the shadow was too gray and I slowly added raw umber to get a bit of brown into it. It was also a bit too uniform and so I started picking up color here and there to show light filtering through the trees and hitting the ground. I feel good about the shadow now but not sure if I’m finished with it yet.

            Next, I added the strip of grass along the driveway, keeping part of it in shadow darker and adding spots of lemon yellow where the sunlight peeked through.

            Finally, I added in the bit of back porch.

            So I’m getting close to finishing this. I’ll leave it alone, then come back here and there, look at it and see what jumps out as needing further work. I think it will be finished by next Update.