Color Blocks

"BNSF #7236 (In Port)"  SOLD
oil on panel, 2010
3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)

Two BNSF locomotives at rest in the port, (notice the two different BNSF logos), the busy port as shown by the background densely packed with shipping containers, cranes, light poles, the curve of the bridge barely visible in the upper left.

This painting is a study in patches or blocks of color in my deeper, less earthy palette. All the dark values lie in the upper half of the composition but the orange locomotives still separate from the blocks of shipping containers. Separation by color instead of value.

The hints of detail in the locomotives , the near rim lighting, and the indicated logos on the containers were all needed to overcome what could have been a too simplistic value composition, split across the middle of the picture plane.78
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