As I painted across the prairies, I became aware of some of the decision points that shaped each painting. The road doesn’t curve a lot, so there are few right curves. Most paintings look down the highway from the right hand side, which makes the road move left to right through the picture plane.
Sometimes a side road can be used to get a bit further off the highway, especially if the ditches are precariously steep.
First question – where does the horizon go? I tried to mix it up, high, low, middle, etc. A straight line across for that was a good start.
Then I identified landmarks for roughly where the right and left side of the painting would fall.
These questions were decided by using my two hands with thumb and forefinger making right angles to form a square.
Drawing starts at the horizon. Perspective is worked out in relation to other things, especially things on the horizon. I also used the hand square – oh yes, that hits the side about a quarter of the way up, etc.
Many commonplace sights did not fall into the picture plane. Cows, for example. I saw lots of them, but you could see them looking right or left, not down the road. Also, alas, no oil pumps.
Today I arrived in the mountains. There’s a lot of mountain between the sky and the road here, whereas in the prairies the road and the sky kiss each other, obviously in the distance, but if you think about it, all the way down the road’s length. (Whew.) More practically, the sky and the road surface tend to both have freer brushwork in my paintings.
Here the mountains stand as chaperones between the sky and the land. But the clouds and mountains get up to some pretty funny business. The road will get smaller in these paintings, I think, unless I leave the sky out entirely, which is also possible. Though I do like skies…
Nicole Bauberger Paintings 