Yellow House is based on a scene I discovered while traveling through western Colorado with our summer painting group. I was driving south from Carbondale, through Redstone and toward McClure Pass, when I noticed this small yellow house beside the road with an enormous mountainside rising behind it. What stopped me was the light. The house was in bright sunlight, while the steep hillside immediately behind it remained quite dark, making the yellow of the house stand out dramatically against the landscape. I pulled over, walked about a hundred yards into a nearby field, and took several reference photographs. The composition was already strong, and although I made some adjustments when I painted it, I stayed fairly close to what first caught my attention. In this tutorial, we'll look at how strong contrasts of light and dark, along with differences in scale, value, and color, can turn a simple subject into a compelling landscape. If you'd like to paint along with me, a downloadable copy of the reference photograph is available inside the tutorial.

To create a free account with your email, click Get Now.