“Winery Barn” - 9 x 12 oil on gessoed hardboard

We’re on a roll here. Friday afternoon, around five, my husband asked me … “So, is there anywhere you’d like to go and paint?” I thought for a moment and then remembered a place not far away where an old winery building had been restored - and was close to a parking lot - not off in the boonies somewhere. When the sun is going down, getting where you want to be - pronto - is definitely a factor.

When we got there, the side of the barn was raked with brilliant sunshine putting the surface into high relief. The towering deodars cast shadows across the stonework - shadows that literally seemed to move as I painted. To the side of the stone barn was a small vineyard with a polite sign that read “Please don’t pick the grapes - we’re going to make some wine.” I’m not sure the message got through to the deer that roam the area - especially the doe and her fawn that we saw roaming around a water drainage basin. It’s a place that I plan on returning to soon - perhaps to catch the barn from another angle at dawn.

I had only been painting for about half an hour when I became concerned I might not finish, so I grabbed the palette knife with which I had been mixing colors and started painting the trees and some of the foreground shrubbery. Sometimes necessity makes you take chances you might not otherwise consider … and that’s a good way to stir things up.

When I got home and had some time to inspect it more carefully, I decided that I wanted to warm up the sky a bit on the left, and to lighten the roof of the small outbuilding as well as one of the sun-facing mountaintops. So this is what the painting looks like under warm (incandescent) room light. As we left, we met a lovely couple who were also having their evening stroll and watched a doe and her fawn floating around a catch basin, browsing on chapparal. Have you ever seen a deer trot? It looks like they’re dancing. Usually I see deer walking slowly and grazing, or bolting through the brush. But when they trot they literally look like they’re walking on air. Magical.

Here are a few details, for fun … and here’s to wineries, radiant sunsets, dancing deer, taking chances and playing with knives.