This morning I came across a couple of one color washes I painted a couple of years ago. The watercolor washes were backgrounds for a product photo shoot for a client’s Etsy page. I decided I would reuse the washes.

I thought it would be interesting to use one as the background of a painting. I selected the yellow one and pulled up a photo on my phone that I had taken several weeks ago. At the time, I was out for a run and I was passing an old house surrounded by hedges. I thought it would be a good reference photo if I decided to do any haunted house paintings this year.

I started by drawing in pen and ink on the yellow. Then I painted the hedges and the trees, and then some of the other areas. Lastly the details on the house. I decided not to turn the house into a haunted house because as it turns out, the house had a secret of it’s own. Not even a week after I took the photo, my husband said to me, “Did you hear about the house in town with the pigeons? They found 350 pigeons living inside the house. The house didn’t even have running water.” I knew right away it was the house I had taken the photo of.

I decided to paint the house the way I saw it. No extra spooky details. Just an old house hidden by overgrown hedges.