Farm to Table

 I spent another day at the animal farm owned by Farm 255 and Farm Burger. Kate joined me and we spent several hours in a cow pasture in the hot Georgia sun. It was a breezy day, so it was nice most of the time. We both worked on some good farmer tans, too.

We started the day by driving to Athens and eating brunch at Farm 255. It was our first time there and we loved it. Kate had the rustic eggs with grits, and sausage. I had a braised beef, egg and cheese biscuit. The biscuit was one of the best I've ever had. It was served with pork braised greens. I'm not the biggest greens fan, but those were really good. Not sure if it was the pork flavoring or the fresh, local greens... 

So this scene is from the middle of the cow pasture. The cows did a very nice job moving around so I could choose from a lot of poses. The barns are the two main barns on this property, and the yellow emblem on the barn on the left is of the sun. I painted this on a 9x12 canvas panel so I could suggest a panorama.

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As I've written many times before, I find it awesome when I am outside painting. Even when it is hot, flies buzzing around and smelling like manure, I easily get 'into the zone'. The zone where time has no meaning, and I get lost in my work. Even if you aren't a painter, I'm sure you can imagine the process I went through today. You focus on the task at hand - the task of handling the paint, light and shade, color and value.  You evaluate the spaces and decide on the composition. You weigh out the main subjects, and gain an appreciation for the energy and life around you. Dark violets over there. Sunny yellow greens here. Repeat that nice pink and umber hue. Capture how the sunlight falls and the the trees make those nice transparent shadows. Make your best effort to translate what it is that you feel at this moment, in this place. Step back and realize that your painting features a hog's ass.

The fine folks at Full Moon Farms sent me an email after my last post! To help me with my "Farm to Canvas" series, they graciously gave me access to their farms. Today I went to the animal farm. I can easily find hundreds of scenes to paint there. They have several acres where they raise pigs, cows and chickens. The place has several nice old barns, big trees and wide fields. So expect to see a lot of pieces from this place, and I expect I'll tackle a few of the subjects more than once. In fact, I wouldn't mind doing a painting of the other side of that pig.

It was actually a real treat to hang out with the hogs. They w

ere very friendly and came up to me when I first got there. A side benefit when painting with animals around, they quickly get used to you and you get to observe how they behave normally. These pigs have it great. They have a lot of forest to roam around freely in, with several great mud pits where they can cool down.

Many thanks to George, and Jason for their hospitality. Special thanks to Jared for showing me around and the recommendation on where to paint.

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