West VA Watercolor

Though it was the middle of summer, my "hermitage" at Bartow, West Virginia was downright cold. That was because the area was at least 2800 feet in elevation, perhaps more if you counted from the hillsides. That's fairly lofty, at least for the eastern USA. I had brought a hoodie sweatshirt and a rain parka, and I wore them both with the hood up and was still cold. So drawing outdoors wasn't something I wanted to do for very long. Instead I asked the hotel's restaurant workers whether I could use one of their tables to paint from, since the place had a nice view. The restaurant was closed from after lunch until early evening, so they allowed me to paint there. This is the result. It's a faithful rendering of the view from the road, complete with barn and field and wooded hills. If you look closely just at the front tip of the barn's pointed roof you can see tiny dark brown cattle grazing in the field. Gray clouds rolled across the sky all day. This painting was done all on site and is 11" x 8" on watercolor paper. It was the only watercolor I painted during my entire journey.