"She Brings Lemonade" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic on panel, 14 x 8". Copyright ©2009, all rights reserved.

She brings lemonade for her man, and water for the horses. Is it any different than when I bring my husband a beer while he’s working on his Jeep on a hot day?

This is another painting for Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes From Different Folks painting challenge. This time we’re in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I’ve never been to Lancaster County, but my ancestral roots run deep there. I’m only a couple of generations removed from making quilts instead of paintings.

A few images captured along the way:

Photograph by Karin Jurick. Copyright ©2009 Karin Jurick, all rights reserved.

My photo of a farmer and horses laid over Karin's photo.

I’ve got to admit that empty landscapes don’t hold my interest. Maybe because I’m a city girl, they seem sad and lonely, like empty stage sets waiting for the actors to bring them to life. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate other artist’s landscapes – some painters do fabulous things with dirt and sky! I just feel that if I want to enjoy this painting, I need to add some people. Amish people.

I use Photoshop to layer images together so I have only a single reference to work from.  I was envisioning a farmer working the fields, and luckily I had photos I’d taken of a man with some horses at the state fair last summer. With a little makeover he might pass for Amish, so I traveled to Google Land to look for tips on clothes, hats, and beards. A lot of their fabrics are blue or purple – I wonder what kind of dye they’re using? Must be a natural plant dye. My guy’s going to get a nice purple shirt, because I love purple.

This time I’m painting on a bright yellow/orange/red background. The yellows will help the transparent greens to glow, and the complementary red and orange will help tone down the greens.

Blocking in the colors. I’m trying hard NOT to cover all that orange. I need some peeking through for interest.

Here I’ve added the Amish women.

The horizontal lines in the field have been changed to sweeping curves to show the woman’s path. Also, I’m hoping it helps show that we’re on a hill.

I don’t know why, but this exhausted me! Nothing seemed to go right, and I really struggled with the horses and the man. By the time I got to painting the landscape details, I realized I was out of time. Karin’s deadline for the DSFDF challenge is in a couple of hours, so I’m calling it done and submitting it. Maybe later I’ll go back and fix a couple of things, like the man’s shirt and hat.