Hi Kay.
I painted this back around August and loved it because I found it amusing but hated it because it is so simple. I didn’t figure anyone would like it being as simple as it is so it’s been sitting in the closet since then.
I actually had difficulty with the challenge of creating the illusion of a square in the distance and a sketch up close. Too much light and detail in the scene ruined the illusion so I had to really subdue things to get it to work. At the end, I put an earth-tinted oil wash over the square so the sheen would match the oil based antique white of the rest of the painting. But this might’ve been a mistake as now the light tends to glare off it and makes the details even harder to pick out.
I’m not sure how to add more definition without losing the illusion 🤔

Thank you, Trier.

Regarding the red clay, at one point I tried adding the tannins I extracted from oak galls which was intended for iron gall ink, to the red clay. The tannins reacted with the iron oxide in the clay changing the clay color from red to a dull brown. I say this because the iron in the clay is apparently easily affected.

I’ve read that red clay is just yellow clay that has been well watered but also well drained so that the air can get to the iron oxide in it and increase the sort of ‘rust’ it produces. I also know that in iron gall ink, the iron rusts very quickly within a day or so) after drawing with it if there is excess iron that doesn’t bond with tannins. It may be possible to create a simple red clay out of yellow by a series of hydrating and drying it. Or, what may be particularly interesting, by adding a rust solution to it, then letting it air out. The rust/iron solution I used for iron gall ink was merely distilled white vinegar in which I left an old rusty horseshoe to soak for about 10+ days. Salt might also be an option for promoting ‘rust’ once the iron is abundant. I haven’t found any yellow clay yet or I would try it, myself🙂.

I’ve attempted to get a better photo of the details of this painting and even tried changing the contrast, shown below, but it isn’t much better.

It may not be possible to further improve this painting while keeping the illusion with this medium. My thinking at this point is that it might be possible to do the scene in acrylic, then put a layer of more coarsly ground pigment (not sure what binder) over it. Perhaps the coarse grains could obscure the image enough to look like a fairly solid color from a distance. Yet up close it might be able to get an impressionist quality image in it. That’s just a theory though.