Lanneau-Norwood House, 42″ x 23″, acrylic on board

I vividly remember my first day of Kindergarten many, many years ago. My teacher, Miss Schneider, and her aides worked very hard to make that disparate collection of latter-day toddlers welcome. They read us stories. Played some dumb games. We sang some really dumb songs. Messed with a few of the chunky Kindergarten toys scattered around the room. I wasn’t buying it. I intended to go home and tell my parents that it was all very nice but I preferred not to return.

And then, in the back of the room, I discovered an easel with a large piece of newsprint paper pinned to it. A little shelf in front held a bunch of cut-off milk cartons full of poster paint. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at.

But I liked it!

Miss Schneider saw my interest and briefly explained the process of painting a picture. What should I paint? She suggested I paint a house.  I dipped a brush into a milk carton holding foamy red poster paint and painted a drippy line across the bottom of the paper. Inspiration seized me! I proceeded to paint lines up the left and right sides, nearly to the top of the page. There I painted the slightest of angles, suggesting a pitched roof. I then luxuriated in painting the entire sheet in the most delicious shade of red I’d ever experienced.

I drained the milk carton of its magical substance, unpinned my masterpiece, tacked up another sheet, and began a yellow house. Then Miss Schneider rudely interrupted, saying art time was over. But I could finish tomorrow. This gave me incentive to return. In the following days, I finished my yellow house and continued on to make a blue, green, brown, and black “house”.

Although I might just as well have become a house painter as a painter of houses, the joy in painting for me comes from the pure sensual act of schmooshing color around on a surface. Here’s where working on the Lanneau-Norwood painting becomes the most fun!

Using the tight pencil under-drawing as a guide, I’m free to loosely wash in the shadow areas with burnt umber. Over that and still working loosely with a large brush, I rough in the general colors of each area. The Lanneau-Norwood House is painted an assertive salmony-pink with bold white trim. My client has been able to get me a sample of the House’s actual color. Aptly chosen to express the House’s personality, the color insists on being the center of attention. It doesn’t play well with the natural colors in its environment. To showcase this color, I simplify the surrounding pallette, choosing muted blues and greens. Warm and cool grays, running the gamut from black to white, do the heavy lifting to define shape and depth. The Lanneau-Norwood House faces due north. The Sun is always behind her. There are not dramatic shadows or highlights.  Just modulations of the ever insistent salmony-pink. Using gradually smaller brushes, I go over each area on the painting, adjusting color balance, bringing things into greater relief and focus. Working this way, I revisit each area of the painting several times.

The background panels on either side are the last task. I use a bit of muted pink to suggest the garage and back house, drawing the eye into the distance. I quickly rough in shades of dark green to suggest the woods in back against a sparkling blue sky. These colors repeat across the windows on the deeply shadowed porch, indicating reflections and tying it all together.

For me, painting a “portrait” of the Lanneau-Norwood House has been more than just making an image of a place.  It’s been a discussion with her visual personality. I hope the conversation will continue with the painting’s viewers.