Chartreuse Umbrellas (Pike and Rose, #1), 20″ x 16″, UART 320 board

Graphite drawing

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting with alcohol

Hello Friends!  It’s been quite a while since I posted–one painting in Sepember and now one for October.  I started this one at least a month ago but had a lot of problems with it. And I’ve been away for two weeks.  (Lewis and Clark cruise on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington.)  I had many problems with this painting!  It resulted in me ordering the Terry Ludwig Intense Darks set!  Came right after I returned.

But let me start at the beginning.  In early September, I had to be at Pike and Rose in Rockville to deliver miniature paintings for the upcoming show at Strathmore. It was early morning and a beautiful, sunny day.  I decided to walk around and quickly realized that this place was quite charming and might lend itself to a new “city” series.  This is a fairly new development off the Rockville Pike, with nice stores, colorful umbrellas, and lots of potted plants.  Subsequently, I went back and took another series of pictures and this first (only?) painting is from the second set.  I really liked the way the sun was gleaming on the car and the way the umbrellas were radiated reflected color.  And, while the top is a rather strange configuration of pieces of colored steel, it forms a nice triangle, and with the shading on the street, gives some structure to the composition.  I also like the way the strong diagonal line of the shadow, leads to the light piece of side walk, which leads the eye to the umbrellas and car.

However, this was a challenge!  First, I didn’t get the drawing right and had to correct the lower left side, which is really critical to the success of the painting.  So I brushed it all off and redrew it.  Then I found that the colors I used just weren’t dark enough.  I was using the Blue Earth sets and using the darkest colors in them, but they weren’t working.  So I ordered the Ludwigs and found them to be more successful.  I really needed the background to be dark to set off the umbrellas, and I also wanted to keep it from being too detailed. Before applying darker color over what I had, I sprayed most of the painting with workable fixative. That allowed me to apply the darker colors without it looking muddy.  And I have to say that the Ludwig set is really DARK!

Everything in this painting was difficult–the street, the trees, and especially the cars!  The first car is, of course, the most important, being the center of interest (not something I normally do).  John pointed out that the wheels were too small. I made them taller and it looked much better.  But the sunburst on the windshield took three tries.  The first two had too much light and it looked really hokey.  So I lessened it and found it to be much better.

It’s been awhile since I did a city painting and it reminds me of how much easier a landscape is!  I hope I’ll do more with this series.  We’ll see.  My other painting in progress is of Mt. Hood at sunrise–quite different.