The barn has remained essentially the same without the corrections I talked about in the previous blog. This is a full size painting of the miniature that I finished this past summer but that's the purpose of the small ones. Each one was the prep work for a bigger painting that I plan on doing some time in the future. 
Things are progressing on this project yet there are some changes and additions to make. The barn wood is too redish brown so I'm going to gray it down to make it look more weathered and I'll add more trees to the left of the barn than the small original had. Maybe I'll have this done in two or three days.
The painting that I'm presently working on will fit in an 18x24 frame, substantially larger than the work I've done all summer. In the photo you can see the 8x10 that I finished early this summer, it's the basis for the large one. The large painting is about 25% completed.
The sky in this finished painting turned out exceptionally good. The storm is moving in yet the sun is shining strong, one of those special moments before the storm.
It's been a while scince I've finished a painting like this and it was fun to do so it was worth it. Trying to keep the mountains in the background gave me quite the challenge.
The mountain scene I was working had some obsticles to overcome so I put it off and went on to this fall farm scene. Most of my paintings for the last month have been for a 16x20 frame and require more time from start to finish. The small 5x7's are nice but have their limits in creativity.
Sometimes a change is good. It's time to paint something different from the rural farm scenes that I've been painting all summer and fall. This mountain range will be framed by mature pines when I'm done.
I must be anticipating winter with these snowy landscapes I've been painting! This scene conveys the feeling of a real cold afternoon in the middle of January. 16x20" Original Watercolor
Much of the farming life is prepairing for a blanket of snow in the winter months that covers the fields where animals eat. The much needed hay is stored in the barns where it is usually nice and warm even though the snow blows outside. 
Finally I've been able to capture what I want in an intense sunset and do it justice. Many an evening in the late summer or early fall there is a moment of time when the setting sun sets the horizen on fire.
In the top photo you can see the pencil outline of the farm buildings and trees before I painted the first layer. The second photo is a little dull but shows the underpainting before I finished putting the second and third washes on. I'm hoping the edges of the barn, house, and trees will have an orange glow to them as they reflect the setting sun.
The gable of the barn seems so far up when your standing on the ground and by the end of the summer they used to be packed to the top with square bales of hay.
I'm trying to work out the bugs in this little painting and have it ready to post in a day or two. The barn itself is coming along fine, it's the sky that I'm worried about. I've gotten so far behind in just about everything that posting my progress seems to take the back seat.