Above the Old Mill Pond

Above the Old Mill Pond

Acrylic 12" x 16"

This painting was based on Plein Air sketches in Pen and Ink and the watercolor sketch done later in studio.  The perspective is imaginary, as though looking down from a high mill tower.  I wanted to find ways to include what was at the scene in one picture that you could see, just not all at once.

The mill is long unused.  Part of the building being used for apartments.  Part of it collapsing.  Part of it long collapsed.  The mill pond still exists, though the dam is slowly failing.  I broke the edge of the building in the foreground to allow another example of distance as well as the birch tree on the right for the same reason.

I was pleased at how this composition came together and I enjoyed trying to convey a sense of space without having any actual "sky" in the painting.  I plan to go back to this location to do an on location painting of the dam itself, before it is gone.

You may have noted that there is no chimney in the finished painting.  There wasn't actually one there, I was just experimenting in the watercolor.  I also adjusted the angle of the mill building to lead more into the mill pond rather than across it as in the watercolor sketch.