Mountain View Cemetery: Matthew's Monument

There were so many interesting monuments I had trouble narrowing down the image to something manageable. I found a shady side of a large tomb and focused on the tall column. At first I thought it was a figure at the top. I saw it from the right side of this view, then I saw the urn with the drape hanging. Interesting, I don't know what that means exactly in cemetery symbolism. The sky was quite different, very light with clouds and there were some drifting gray clouds at an angel floating by. When I tried to paint them, they sort of mushed together. I guess the paper was still too wet from the sky painting. The color of the column was unusual too, I guess its some kind of red/pink marble. There were a lot more memorial stones that I left out. But the composition didn't need them. I have been using a smaller brush for the trees lately and I like it. Its a # 7 Rafael Kolinsky Sable. It seems to work better than the #9 that I was using, especially for the background trees. I used a 1" flat sable for the sky and underpainting for some of the trees and foreground. I wet the paper first for the sky because it looked so liquid. I was careful not to paint in the column or the light areas in the foreground.

Larry Hatfield