Water Street: Part 2

Although there was endless excellent subject matter to be found in smaller scale scenes I saw while walking around outside the apartment -- flowering trees, shadows across back alleys, ducks on the river, cars parked in front of stores and pizza stops -- I had trouble resisting the allure of the big view. Anyway, how often do you get to look at something like this from your living room?

Of course the whole view is much more vast than the section I chose to paint -- and focusing in on a workable composition was the big challenge.  Painting it was also a challenge.  Maybe because I'd done a similar scene the day before, I was a bit more relaxed for this one and more comfortable simplifying what I was seeing into color shapes:

By the way, you can click on any image to see an enlarged version.

At night I went back to the same basic scene, except with a wider scope.  While working, the dabs of paint on the tiny black panel seemed much too simplistic for the effects I was seeing -- lights shimmering on the water, etc. -- and ridiculously out of scale with the immensity of the city at night. 

But, still, painting allowed me to show some appreciation for it all. And the little marks convey honest interest and response. That's a lot of what art's about for me. If the painting also suggests the scene in a pleasing way, so much the better.  I most like the shadow on the murky river (cutting diagonally up form bottom center).

On the thrid day I painted a view of the back of the Federal Building, with the County Office Building tower in the background.  I'm more likely to protest an unjust war in front of the Federal Building than wave a flag, but I still like how the flag looked and how this quick suggestion with a coarse-bristled little brush came out pretty well.

Incidentally, while sketching and taking photos on Andrews Street, I forgot that I might raise alarms for guards at the Federal Building.  A man milling around taking notes and continually stopping to set down a suspicious parcel (a calzone from Pizza Stop) and snap photos must have looked like a potential security threat.  The guard who came over to talk to me was commendably polite and open minded, although I was told not to aim my camera at the building.  Apparently sketching and painting are OK, though.

(SEE PREVIOUS POST for the first half of this stop).