My Church - Take Three

I love our church! It's a small country church, and it is so picturesque with its red brick and white trim. I like it so much that I've tried to paint it a couple times before, but I've never been happy with the way my efforts turned out. So yesterday I decided to try it again. This time I went larger and painted it on a 16 x 20 linen panel.

Here's my sketch.

And, despite promising myself that I'd photograph all along the way, I got so engrossed that I was suddenly at the point below before I remembered to take another photo.

Look at the photo.  Do you see any glaring errors? There are at least two.

First, the church looks like it is leaning a little to the left. That was what jumped right out at me when I stepped back and looked at it. If I bring up the photo on my phone and put it in "edit" mode and rotate it just a fraction to the right, it looks perfect. 

So this morning, I straightened up the sidewalk - although that doesn't change the angle of the sides of the church, it helps give the illusion that it's straight.  I also worked on a couple of the lines of the church to make them straighter. I was mostly satisfied that it was no longer leaning.Then I had a good time adding some texture and color to both the sky and the foreground parking area. I sat back and looked at it again, and the second error suddenly hit me! Do you see it?

The second error is that the front door is not centered on the tall middle column. Once you see it, that's all you can see! At least that was all I could see. That was an error I couldn't leave. So I got out a scraper and completely wiped off the overhang above the front door. Then I carefully painted it back - this time centered and a little smaller, too, to be more proportionate.

I've found that usually the first few days after finishing a painting, I will look at it with fresh eyes and see something else that needs to be done. So we will see what happens to it over the next couple days.

I laugh at the tall bushes to the left of the church. They are so overgrown that if it were up to me, I'd cut them all down to about 2 feet high! They'd fill out quickly enough. Right now they block that entire side of the church. However, that's not my area of expertise or responsibility. It has been several years since I took the photo that I based this painting on. Since then, there have been trees planted on the right front side of the church - and those have gotten overgrown, too, blocking much of that side of the church. I decided to paint based on the photo I have and not include those newer trees. I like have more of the church building itself showing.

I didn't think I was going to like this painting when I finished working on it the first day. It just didn't look right to me. However, after making some changes today, I like it more. It still doesn't have the easy, free-flowing look I am working toward. However, I DO very much like the sky and the parking lot, the church looks like the church, the trees look like trees, I didn't get bogged down with tedious details - and I'm happy with it. And that's a good thing!

After it dries and I get it varnished and framed, I may donate it to our church's Fall Festival auction. Of course, that would be a big step in vulnerability because there are some really great artists in our church.  

Update: 7/11/2019. I made more changes.  The three photos below show some of the progression of changes.  And the last photo is where it is now - and I've vowed not to touch it again.

I made the sky too patchwork-y in this version. And I angled the sidewalk downward again. Nope. However I like the look of the brickwork now.

So I straightened the sidewalk again, and I put longer strokes in the sky.

I added more blue to the sky and darkened the foreground of the front parking area. I'm still not happy with the sky - but unless I decide to scrape it all off and paint the sky completely over, I'm not doing anything more to it.

Now I'm trying to come up with a good title for it, and I'm working on a poem. Nothing is coming to me easily. So I will probably just think about it for a few days. Usually I will get an idea that will eventually lead me to where I want to go as far as a title and poem.