Foreshadow

In my part of the world we have barns. We also have pole barns and right now we are in the transition time between the two. So many of the old wood structures of late have found their final rest. It seems that, like lightbulbs, they are all going at once to be replaced by the modern metal sheds that meet the needs of today’s crop farmer.

This wonderful barn used to be up the road a ways from me, with the Loess Hills as a backdrop. I put the Turkey Vulture on the peak as a foreshadowing of what fate had in store for this once central part of a farming operation. Even though I had painted this barn as a plein air piece in the past, this watercolor was a studio work. The idea of encroachment of nature, time and age, and our disappearing farm heritage is becoming a central focus of my work in art and photography.

At the End of a Country Road

As a watercolor artist I have painted  on location for about 12 years with a group of plein air painters. There is a never ending source of subject matter out there and sometimes it is hard to find your painting in the mass of chaos.  Most of the time when I am confronted by the landscape, I  choose to paint something with structure.  I love old barns, corn cribs, churches, log cabins and all the rusty gold that goes with them. I have always felt more at home with simple ways of life. These ways of life, our Midwestern pioneer heritage is disappearing. Lately I’ve noticed several barns that have given up the ghost and lay in heaps waiting to be repurposed or bulldozed into the ground. I wonder if it is because they were all built about the same time and all go at the same time, much like the light bulbs that all burn out at once.

The watercolor painting of the old barn above is  in the Loess Hills not too far from where I live. The watercolor painting of the church is in the country near Soldier, Iowa. Both paintings were started on location.  I was able to complete the drawing and get some of the washes laid in. I then completed them at home where I could refer to photographs for detail.