Wednesday

Well I couldn't wait and decided to start one of the 40x40's. The other city painting can wait a bit, its nice to have several paintings in the works that way i don't get too bored with one of them. 

This is just the start where I figure out the composition; The main river is down in front: actually this would have been the open sea back some 400 years ago; since then the dutch have been filling it in to reclaim land. I hinted at the canals just above the main waterway.

I then blasted in the background colors of the city, land and sky, keeping everything as loose as I could.

With a few darks I wanted to put those in next to establish my range of values. I now have my darkest dark at the bottom and lightest light in the upper right corner.

Next I defined the lakes in the background and some of the blues.

This morning I had fun and put in the city in the lower foreground. There I mainly looked for the broad shapes and colors of the ground below. The value was the same but there was a difference in color between the bluish trees and the warmer buildings. With the addition of some highlights on the roof tops and what ever else was reflecting light the city now comes together better. Its very loose and almost abstract but from a distance it all reads as the city below. It's amazing how a few brush strokes with fool the eye of a rooftop or roadway.  Tomorrow I'll work on the canals of the old town.

Richard Boyer