Student critiques for the Rustic Shed Painting Workshop.
October 28, 2025
By Richard Robinson
Painting a Rustic Shed Step by Step
For landscape painters, there's something so alluring about old ramshackle buildings. They're full of character, full of potential stories. Contrast that with painting a pristine glass skyscraper. The old shed wins hands down. Often it's not just the building itself, but the flotsam that washes up around it on the tide of years - an ecology of purpose lost and found.
In this painting of a shed just down the road in New Zealand, it's all about the shed. It's really a portrait, with everything else as the stage for it to write out its long story. The softly shadowed plain foreground leads the eye in, and the dark background offers to hold your attention to the bright, crisp details that are contrasted upon it.
Ask yourself in your next painting, what is the star of the show, and in what ways can the rest of the painting be supporting actors?
Rustic Farm Shed 10x12" Oil on Canvas by Richard Robinson
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Student Critiques
Rustic Farm Shed 12x12 Oil on Canvas Artist: Nancy Newton
Great job, Nancy. Your colours are spot on, and there’s some good expressive brushwork in there, especially in the foreground. The old shed is looking suitably ramshackle and there’s a nice variety of colour and brushwork in the ground plane, which has the potential to be dull if not treated this way.
Couple of things that would lift the centre of interest even more would be to add more variety in colour and value to the wooden fencing and the red doors.
Ruakaka barn, 12x10” oil on panel
Artist: Mark Price
Nicely done, Mark! Lots of interest in here with punchy colour and big textured areas contrasting the finer details. One word of advice - keep working on making a mark (Mark) and leaving it, rather than overworking it and obfuscating it.
Rustic Shed 8 x 10 Oil on Canvas. My personal challenge was to complete this in one hour!
Artist: Louise Villegas
Great idea, Louise, giving yourself an hour to complete this painting. That shows in the expressive brushwork and bold colour. I like the effect you’ve achieved in the foreground by softening the brushwork there - that pushes your eye to the other areas that are more in focus with sharper edges.
I’ve got three tips for you: 1. Add some colour variety into the ground plane with grey browns. 2. Avoid using purple for shadows (like inside the barn). Add yellow or orange to purple to grey it down. 3. Sharpen up the top edges of the barn, because it’s your center of interest so should be in sharp focus.
Rustic Farm Shed Oil on oil paper
Artist: Geoffrey Geeson
Beautifully done, Geoffrey! I think I prefer it to my one. Lots of interesting lyrical brushwork is laid down confidently and left to speak. Intensifying the darks in the foreground has added more gravity to that section, and there’s more to look at; more interest. You’ve made beautiful organic shapes in there too, and throughout - clearly defined like interlocking puzzle pieces. Great work!
Rustic farm, oil, canvas, 46 cm x 38 cm
Artist: Elena Sokolova
Great seeing you do this on a larger canvas with such gusto, Elena! Nicely done. All that expressive brushwork has given this quiet scene a visceral sense of movement and life! What makes that even more effective is that you’ve slowed down and carefully defined the key elements, so there’s a beautiful contrast between movement and stillness.
Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered a painting into the monthly workshop. Great work!
Let me show you the keys to achieving a fresh painterly look without sacrificing realism.
This lesson is a pre-recorded livestream that includes student questions and answers, so you'll find this very engaging to watch and learn from. Paint along stroke by stroke, pause and replay whenever you like. Grab your favourite beverage and a cookie and enjoy the experience of a live workshop!
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