We moved rural about 20 years ago. Before this, I always lived in very large cities. The culture here among the farmlands and woods is very different than in the big city. Life is slower and more anchored to the seasons. Instead of lots of new construction of brick and metal, you have the textures of weather-worn wood. Things endure here as the generations come and go. I wanted to create a piece that conveyed the juxtaposition of old and weathered that stands for a past way of life against the hope and future of the next generation that will value this way of life.

Above: Getting the face and hair laid in with a little work on the wooden barn. I am using a technique where I lay in layers of red, blue, and yellow in strokes of color and then blend them. His face has already had a round of blending by this point, but the hair still shows the almost opalescent effect this method has while layers are going on.

I have largely finished his face and hair and now I am focusing on his jacket. I decided to do his collar in that same technique of individual layers so the gray color would feel lively. It still reads as gray, but the little shifts of color make it oh so much more interesting.

Pants and barn wood are the big focus now. The theme of things that endure is there in the jacket as well. Sturdy and practical, denim is the choice for getting things done. the staining is something city parents would probably reject and a new jacket would already have been bought, but country life means fading and staining on work clothes are a measure of valuing hard work.

Focusing on the ground now. The plan is to have peeling paint, scattered straw, rocks, and leaves scattered around. The barn wood is mostly in place now. Just a few more layers to give all the panels the deeper red of the boards just behind his back and head. It cannot be seen easily in this size of the image, but in the actual artwork you can see a hint of a mouse in the shadows at the base of the barn between his feet. 

To build up the ground, I began with random squiggly lines which you can faintly see here in a low opacity red. As I work my way out from more finished areas to less finished areas, I let those random squiggles suggest rocks and I fill in the space between the rocks with smaller random squiggles to suggest the smaller rocks and dirt between them. Like the rest of the portrait, I am working in individual layers of blue, red, and yellow. In this close up screenshot, you can see the mouse hidden in the shadows under the barn.