The Road Home - painting #2

The Road Home
oil on canvas
6 x 8 inches
©Ann Thompson Nemcosky
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Number two in my 100 Painting project for 2010. This scene is the road that leads to my house, early one autumn morning. I have sketched this image before but was never quite able to achieve what I intended. I believe I came much closer with this oil painting.
Here I thought I'd share a little of my process. Instead of painting on the white gesso of the canvas, I first give it a thin coat of acrylic to make the painting ground a color. After the acrylic ground has dried I then complete the painting in oil. I like how the color of the ground helps tie the colors of the painting together, even though it is hardly able to be seen in the end, sometimes not at all, after the image has been painted. It still provides a little influence to the character of the finished painting. I don't do this all the time. Sometimes I paint directly on the white canvas. But I usually enjoy the process of painting more when I have taken this first step. The colors that I choose to cover the white gesso are somewhat arbiturary. I will be thinking of an image or two that I may like to paint and decide whether I want warm, bright, or nuetral for the color of the ground. I mix up a color in acrylic and cover one canvas, then alter it a bit and do another, continuing this way until I have covered four or five canvases. The painting above was done on the lower right canvas in this picture.