Winter on the farm

is a landscape I have been working on this weekend. I thought you might be interested to see how a landscape is 'built' from far away to the foreground, hopefully getting the perspective correct.

I started with a piece of hand dyed fabric that Debbie and I dyed last year. I like using the blues for winter landscapes. I use the whole piece and cover it with the different elements of the quilt. I found some fabric which worked well for the mountains in the distance, cut a strip in the shape of mountains and attached them across the background one third down from the top. I then used acrylic craft paint mixed with textile medium for the mountain peaks. The next picture is a close up of the distant foothills. I did them in a very light grey pen and thread painted all over them. see closeup. I used my green Y & C fabric mate green pen to sketch in the fir trees. I then thread painted trees on top of the green sketched trees to give it more of a 3 d effect.
I used a dark blue pen to draw a line underneath the far shore of the lake. The third picture shows that I am trying to decide where I am going to put the buildings. I
printed 3 different sized buildings on fabric. It is important that the buildings should
be used to set up the perspective with the smaller buildings off in the distance and the larger buildings in the mid and foreground. I also started to do some of the bushes along the hills on this side of the lake.
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The last picture shows how I have used trees and shrubs
to 'ground' the buildings and show the connection between the house, outbuildings and the big barn in the foreground. I also thread painted two wheat fields by showing the
rows covered with snow. I still have lots to do in the foreground which, by the way, is the most difficult part of a wall hanging for me. I will put more details in the snow, as it is important to have it balance with the 'busier' side where the barn is, and then will do the foreground lake and snow area. I will put the rest in as I work on it. I hope you find this interesting.

-------- I find with landscapes that if you do your landscape in stages, it is not as
difficult as you would expect. Do the distant part first and work forward. I never know what I am going to do with each section until I get there.