My most ambitious painting yet

I started this painting three times.

This wasn’t my first 16×20, but it was the most ambitious painting I’d taken on. The house itself was less detailed than my previous one. The challenge was everything around it: more trees, more layers, and more atmosphere. Making the house feel tucked into those woods took more work than painting the architecture.

The first attempt wasn’t coming together. The proportions felt off, and the composition didn’t have the balance I wanted. I could have kept going, but I knew I’d spend the rest of the painting trying to make up for a beginning I wasn’t happy with. So I started again.

The second was going well until my pen slipped, dragging a dark line across the top of the paper. There was no getting out of that one. Watercolor is very unforgiving and you can't cover over mistakes like you can with acrylic or oil. There are some white out type products, which I did try to no avail. I stared at it for a while, then pulled out another sheet of giant paper.

The third start became this painting.

The trees demanded the most time, patience, and attention. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning to paint them, and this house has given me plenty of practice. There were branches catching light, darker foliage receding behind them, and places where the house needed to remain visible through the leaves. Getting those layers to feel distinct without overworking them was difficult. There were stretches when I couldn’t tell whether I was helping or making things worse.

I wanted the house to feel quietly sunlit within its surroundings. Its white exterior and strong rooflines reminded me a little of a secluded Mediterranean villa. I kept the colors muted and the light warm. So much of the painting depended on the relationship between the house's simple, bright shape and the tangled woods around it.

My work has been moving toward more detail and realism than I expected. I enjoy looking closely and figuring out how to translate what I see, even when it takes a few tries. With this piece, I was also learning how much the feeling of a place depends on its surroundings. I still love a loose sketch, too but I want room for both.

The client has a tradition of commissioning paintings of the century-old homes he and his family have lived in. I loved knowing this piece would become part of that collection. These are places they’ve made a life in, and someone has taken the time to look closely at each one.

This one took me three starts and I'm glad I gave it the effort it deserved.