Autumn Watching TV

For many years my wife and I rented a house for a couple of weeks with our family in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. I loved the landscape there. I was fascinated by the scrub pines, the beaches, and dunes, and, of course, the water crashing into the bluffs on the ocean side and quietly lapping the shore on the bay side. But, like Edward Hopper, and many other artists, what I found the most fascinating was the Cape light, warm and cool, clear and hazy all at the same time.

One evening while taking my after dinner walk a cool light had fallen on the Cape and on our house. Our grandchild, Autumn, was inside watching TV, wrapped in a cocoon of warm light. Autumn, focused on the TV, was oblivious to me viewing the scene. All the elements for a perfect painting!

I depicted all of the exterior elements with cool colors creating a textural carpet for the exterior facade that appeared flat. The cedar shakes, typical of homes on the Cape, provided a perfect texture for the wall.

Next I used warm colors and perspective to accentuate the warm, safe character of the room interior. I needed to break up that large exterior space, so I put in the upstairs window in perspective relating to the interior space, which was also in perspective. 

Finally, the bottom left hand corner always has bothered me. The sliding glass doors were too much of a dominant element, too abrupt even with the perspective of the porch deck. I decided to push back the doors by inserting as a foreground element, a bit of the back of a porch chair and part of a table top.

In conclusion, I tried to create a harmonious image through a subtle balancing act of manipulating a number of visual elements. Was I successful?   You be the judge…