Woollen's Glass House

I almost talked myself out of even attempting to paint this one.

When I first started telling friends about my little painting business, a couple of them mentioned wanting portraits of their homes. One of those houses was particularly intimidating. It's mostly glass, surrounded by trees, and unlike anything I've painted so far. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I figured, what the heck. I might as well give it a try.

My friends recently had us over for dinner, and the house is incredible. It's tucked into the woods in Indianapolis, with running water nearby, and feels completely secluded. At night, the enormous wall of glass looks out into a dimly lit forest, with a warm amber glow from inside the house against the darkness of the trees. What I love about the design is the way the glass reflects the surrounding woods while still allowing the architecture to have an identity of its own. The house feels like part of the landscape without disappearing into it.

There's some fascinating history behind it, too. Known as the Thomas V. Parke House, it was designed in 1955 by Evans Woollen, an architect who helped introduce modern architecture to Indianapolis. Woollen studied at Yale and worked with Philip Johnson, who designed the famous Glass House in Connecticut. He later went on to co-design Clowes Memorial Hall, a major performing arts venue at Butler University. This house was actually his first completed project after opening his Indianapolis practice, and it received recognition from *Architectural Record* in 1957. It's even featured in a recently published book about his work. Pretty remarkable for a house hidden away in the woods.

Of course, appreciating the architecture and figuring out how to paint it are two very different things. There are trees in front of the house, behind it, reflected in the windows, and visible right through the glass. I wasn't sure how to make sense of all those layers in watercolor, so rather than jump into a full portrait, I decided to give myself about twenty minutes to experiment in my sketchbook.

As I started, something I learned years ago in art school came back to me. I didn't need to think about how to paint a glass house, or even how to paint a house at all. I just needed to look at what was actually in front of me. The shapes, the areas of light and darkness, the colors next to one another. Once I stopped thinking about what everything was supposed to be and started painting what I could see, it became much less intimidating. I worked through it a little at a time, and to my surprise, it came together pretty naturally.

I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished in twenty minutes, and I can't wait to give this house a proper portrait treatment. There's so much more I'd like to explore about the architecture, the reflections, and that beautiful amber light against the surrounding woods.

After thirty years away from painting, it's been nice to rediscover something I love doing. And maybe to realize that I remember a little more from art school than I thought.