Wednesday

This morning I spent time stretching up some new sizes and blocking in a few new paintings.

This first one is a 24x28 gallery wrap from San Francisco. I want to capture that play in light from the shadow of the foreground and the tram against the background light.  The area in light is so bright that most of the detail is bleached right out. I also liked the tourists hanging from the side of the tram.

The next size I stretched up was a 30x28 gallery wrap, a view of a cable car at the bottom of a rather steep hill. The buildings line both sides and the sunlight is cast across the street between the breaks in the buildings. I took a few more shots of the start for you. First I marked the center of the canvas to make sure I didn't have some obvious thing right in the middle.

Next I put in the cable car and grayed up the foreground to help with the perspective.

Here the building start to go in. I need to cover the canvas with all the composition figured out. This way I can see problems or mistakes before I get to far into the painting and if there is something that's not going to work.

Finally I block in the rest of the buildings with a gray color and establish the play in light along the road as it goes up the hill. The composition is now figured out and I can go on with the real painting. This start took about 45 minutes, it was kept very loose but will make it so no major mistakes will come up later on down the road!

Richard Boyer