Learning not to strip things away

Amy's house is a Cape Cod that just kept going. It has an addition off the side that made it long and tricky to capture in photos. In my first composition drawing, I actually missed an entire section of the house because of how the camera angles cut it off.

That is why I share pencil drawings before any paint touches paper. We caught the missing section right away, Amy sent over clearer photos of the side, and I sat down to redraw the composition from scratch so the proportions fit the page properly.

In earlier paintings, my instinct was to strip things away to keep the framing clean, like taking out fences, shifting branches, or simplifying the yard. On this one, I tried something different. Right from the start, Amy mentioned how much she loved her big oak tree, the flowers in the front bed, and the fence. That made me rethink how I approach these portraits. We do not just live in the walls and roof of a house; we live in everything around it. In my own yard, I have a 100-year-old silver maple that is just as much a part of my home as the front door. Leaving things out might make for an easier composition, but it would not be the place Amy knows.

So the oak stayed. Trees continue to show up on my easel and challenge me, especially working out the branches so the architecture still comes through without getting lost under green washes.

My pen line work on this piece also landed a little darker than I would like. That is something I want to keep refining in future pieces, finding a lighter hand with the ink. But I really enjoyed working through the light hatching in the shadows to give the siding and porch depth without fighting the watercolor.

In the end, I am glad we kept the reality of it. The oak, the flower beds, and that bright blue door made it feel like the home she actually lives in.