Walk Through

Heart Land of America: A Mid-West Landscape

Collection of Harry Kuper Jr.

Step 1: I laid out the drawing and dropped in some paint for the sky. For my reference I am using a photograph taken in Clinton County Illinois.  Joe loves to take photographs for me and he captured some very beautiful midwest scenes while we visited my family. For the drawing I break up the photograph by drawing the lines vertically, horizontally and diagonally.

Step 2: I applied friskett, using a toothpick, to the areas Where I wanted to preserve the white of the paper.

Step 3: I did my main washes and worked on the sky a bit more. I threw color on the fields and worked around the painting.

Step 4: I added the tree line, worked on the sky, the foreground and the fields in the middle.

Step 5: Finally I added the house and barn details, adjusted the values and added the foreground before removing the frisket of the tall grass.

This painting is the first in a series of the midwest.