Alley With Red Dogwood

This weekend was Open Studios weekend at Washington ArtWorks and I chose to work on my fourth Capitol Hill Alley picture. I went to Capitol Hill the weekend before with a friend and it was bright and sunny and beautiful. I have enough photos to finish the series, I’m happy to say! I did the underpainting prior to the weekend so as to have something concrete to work with, in between greeting guests (1300 of them!!!). I chose a bright yellow green for the sky and sunlit areas of the alley. I wanted little pieces of it to show through in the sky and give a glow. I used dark green and blue green NuPastels for the fence and buildings at right, which I thought would be good under the reds to come. I did a partial underpainting of the tree, using red so it wouldn’t be a problem if it showed through. I began with a brown for the shadowed part of the alley, but then added a cool green over it and it was so much better! Now it related to the fence and building. In doing the drawing, I made one critical change. The light post went off the top of the picture and I shortened it so that the light would be in the picture plane. I think this is really a crucial part of the composition and was very happy when I drew it in.

At one point, a woman looked at the photo and at my painting (which still had most of the underpainting showing) and she said “I’d much rather live in that alley” pointing to the picture! Of course, I didn’t retain the colors of the underpainting, but I was happy she liked it.

For the painting, I used soft pastels in the sky and tree, primarily Giraults in the buildings, poles, and alley. The shadowed alley in foreground is a large expanse and I added a little detail of the bricks, but I didn’t want to add a lot. I loved the piece of light on the left and the shadow on the fence, which form a strong zig-zag line that leads the eye to the tree. For the far background, I just put some color in to represent a house and window and I indicated a car simply with its windows. I liked the approach a lot! The right side was the real challenge. I had more of it showing in my painting than in the photo, but I liked the rich reds in the brick and the pole with sign. I didn’t want to paint in all the lines or every brick, but I put in enough indication of line to create perspective.

These pictures are both a challenge and a joy. But I’m happy to report that people really like them (I may have sold 3 out of the 4 I’ve done so far!)