The Five Mile Barn

Acrylic on deep canvas. Painted in studio from numerous plein air sketchbook drawings (from my car) due to heavy smoke.
My inspiration is a very distinctive abandoned barn right next to a busy highway near the turnoff to my farm/home/studio. In August 2023 there was a very fast moving wildfire in the area, and it was the last view of my neighborhood as we evacuated. I was so sad, thinking that the barn would burn, being the least of any of the buildings in the area, and no longer connected to any visible home site. So I decided when we were able to return home that it would be the first thing that I painted. I took liberties, changing the busy highway to what would have been the original dirt road, and left out some of the large fast growing trees. It has been my pleasure to chronicle this forgotten beauty of a barn, and I'm so grateful it escaped destruction by less than 1/4 of a mile.