Day 151 "Bottom of Beacon" pen&ink 6x9

Last weekend I was in Boston briefly.  I was a little early so had a few minutes to hang in the car and draw.  I began this drawing of the beautiful row of buildings where Beacon Street intersects Charles street.  I drew from the car.  I often being by defining the space with the skyline of the buildings, thinking about the negative space as the composition grows.  Here is my start, and above, the completed drawing.  What is that little green truffula tree doing on my dashboard, you might ask?  Years ago, we went to a friend's wedding and the tables were designated with these cute little trees.  For some reason, we took ours, and attached it to the dashboard where it has stayed all these years.  
This is my hundred fifty-first daily drawing.  Thank you, as always, for looking.  

"Berkeley & St. James" pen & ink 9 x 6

We headed into Boston today, an appointment for my daughter.  I waited in the car while she had the appointment, then we spent some time shopping, walking in the cold Boston afternoon, having hot chocolate at Burdick Chocolates and enjoying the sights of this beautiful city as the late afternoon light shifted.  When I did the drawing, I felt the eye was drawn to the top of the steeple of the Church of the Covenant, because the lines were heaviest there.  That isn't what I wanted, so I added some emphasis along the street by adding some value to the people on the street and the window behind.  It moved the viewer's eye down lower, away from the steeple.  You can shift the focus of your design with minor adjustments to value, which create a change in interest.  
This is my eighty-seventh daily drawing.  Thank you for your continued interest.

"Walk - Huntington and Forsyth" pen & ink

There is an outdoor cafe on the Northeastern campus where I sat for an hour the other day.  It was fascinating to watch the Green Line,  buses, and pedestrians coming and going.  Some waited by the corner to meet a date, some smiled joyfully as they bumped into a friend, others walked purposefully to a variety of destinations.  I have always been intrigued by the layering of traffic patterns; cars, trolleys, and multitudes of pedestrians.  How are the traffic lights arranged to keep everyone safe and moving?   All I know is that it works.  
It was a beautiful evening, and interesting to decide how to arrange the layers of people front to farther back.  I began with the arrangement of the lamp posts and traffic lights and then added people as they came and went, with the goal of conveying the hubbub of the afternoon.  

As always, thank you for looking.

Architectural Grouping

This afternoon, the Girls Just Wanna Paint hung a group show at the South Shore Natural Science Center in Norwell.  We each hung 5 paintings.  I brought several more, so I could decide as I looked at the space.  Ultimately I chose all architectural paintings. Seeing them together is a nice reminder that I love painting buildings.  I like their shapes against the sky, with crisp edges, and the way those edges fade into their surroundings as the eye descends.  I love the shapes that coalesce into a visual of the structure... very exciting to me.  

"Berkeley and Boylston" oil 12 x 12

This month, Girls Just Wanna Paint explored the limited palette often used by Swedish painter Anders Zorn (1860 - 1920).  The Zorn palette is limited to yellow ochre, black, white, and cadmium red deep.  I have always told my students that if the values are accurate, then the painting will hold.  It was interesting using a warm red and a cool yellow with the black and white.  I almost never have black on my palette, so it was disconcerting at first to make gray with black, a technique I usually avoid. However, I never left the gray as only black and white, but altered it each time with a little of the cad red, or a little of the yellow.  The "battleship" gray possible with just black and white doesn't ring true to me, regardless of the palette I am using.  Every gray out there is influenced by its surroundings, even on a battleship. This is a painting of Berkeley Street from the intersection at Boylston in Boston, looking down at the Church of the Covenant, which creates a beautiful silhouette against the sky. 
  

You can see my block in for the painting and some iterative photos here.  It was a fascinating exercise, and very interesting to make cools out of black with yellow ochre, which makes an interesting olive green.  I'm going to do some more experimenting with this palette. You can see the rest of our paintings here. 

As always I love your comments.  What do you think?

"Last Light" 8 x 6 soft pastel

"Last Light"  start

I am experimenting with soft pastels.  For "Last Light", I created a ground on canvas with gouache straight from the tube using a combination of ultramarine, burnt sienna and viridian.  The ground formed is matte, and toothy, which I like.  I built up the lights, leaving some of the ground showing in the darkest darks.  Interesting effect, and completely counter-intuitive for me thinking about how to lay color next to other color, rather than using my limited palette of oils or watercolors to make the color I am looking for. 

Thanks for looking.. we'll see what happens next.

Rainy Day at the Coffee Shop 9 x 12 pen & ink

Another wonderful morning spent hanging in the coffee shop on Beacon & Charles Streets in Boston.  Parking is free in the city on Sunday so if you get in around 8:30, the streets are pretty open. I love watching the pedestrians, today pedestrians with umbrellas, walking in and out of the Common. It's so interesting to sit, draw, and listen to the buzz of conversations in the shop.  
I took a few reference photos of pedestrians to use in my drawing, but mostly, I like to try to grab their gesture as they wait for the traffic light.  

I think I'll add a little rainy day hint of color to the distance in this drawing.  I like to think of generations of people walking through the stone pillars at the corner of the Common.   

Rainy Day at the Coffee Shop - start

"Overlooking Eiffel" 6 x 9 pen and ink

Continuing to explore some old photographs as potential painting subjects.  Back in 2009 we took a school trip to Amsterdam, Lucerne and Paris.  It was wonderful... every minute.  It's fun reminiscing.  I'm enjoying the subject matter, and the drawing.  Thanks for looking.