Hay bale in the far corner of the field

Here is a lone hay bale that ended up in a nice position near some shade at the far corner of a nearby field.  I like shade on a hot summer morning.

I thought that this scene might make a good painting because it was very simple without a lot of sky and without distant hills -- just a flat field and vertical trees.  There was quite a bit of contrast in the vertical plane, very dark spots in the shadow zone and very bright areas where the sun was directly hitting the foliage.

The scene

Underway

After the drawing that was done in burnt Siena  I started working from the background.  There was glowing bright light behind the trees, so yellow /orange was washed in that area.  The trees were done by shaping with the shadows first, saving the most contrast for the near area.

Since the light was changing steadily, I picked the moment to paint the foreground when the shadows were close to a pleasing shape.  I quickly indicated those shadow shapes with diluted green/brown and then had fun filling in the remaining area with bright yellow orange to help get the eventual sunny look on the field.  The hay bale was worked up using layers of color, think and thin paint, and general fussing around until it looked like the dry textured big  heavy thing that it was.

L'ultimo Rotoballe  o/c   40 x 50cm