"Rustic Barn"

Rustic Barn, is my first painting I painted in my second year of painting. My thoughts before starting this was that I wanted to give myself a little bit of a challenge of trying to paint a more complex picture, potentially something I would want to hangup in my future home. For most of my life I have always loved the kind of rustic/country look. Then, while looking through numerous pictures, this particular old barn caught my eye. I decided oil paint would be the best medium for this painting to use due to me knowing I'd have to be able to mix different colors together for the reflective look in the pond of the barn and trees. I used a lot of different values on the whole barn especially the roof and front to the barn to give it the rustic and older look using a lot of duller reds and grays together. Before painting, I had to be sure to draw my lines on the barn straight and have it be proportional so it wasn't going to look two dimensional instead of three-dimensional. Also, for the part in my picture of the grass and fence, I had to give it more detail such as a textured look with a fan brush for the grass since it was up closer. I feel like the hardest part in my painting was the very thin lines I had to paint to create the fence or having to paint in a jaggidy way for the reflective look. One thing I would do differently in this painting was to not make the biggest tree leaning, I would make the tree thinner and up straight.