TERMINATED

"Oil Plant Nocturne"   SOLD
oil on panel, 2011
4" x 5" (10.16cm x 12.7cm)
davidteter@att.net

My 100th posted image. Numbered posts include only images posted for the first time, so this does not count posts with repeated images due to an update or an all text post, gallery or show announcement.
I originally planned to feature an image from a new upcoming 2011 series on the Vincent Thomas Bridge as the 100th but upon discovering the recent demise of the oil plant I decided it would finish out the first 100. The new series starting at 101.

Although this nocturne features trees, it is from my Oil Plant series. This building was on the same site as the oil plant and served as the office.
Now shut down, the windows boarded up, the only signs of life are the trees and the lone light needlessly illuminating the parking lot.

I saw this in the day time but turned it into a nocturne, so I needed to figure out or imagine how it would look at night with the light on and other ambient light at the horizon and the left side.
About the time I painted this, I revisited the site and much to my dismay it was gone, the plant razed to the ground (actually a pumping station I recently found out), nothing left but a lot scraped clean and piles of dirt. TERMINATED.

So with that in mind... it's final night.
The power pole, with it's wires, function as a cross much like you would see on a grave site. Although it is usually considered bad design to split compositions in half, sometimes I will do so just to see if I can 'break a rule' and still make it work, a challenge I enjoy. See three others with the same premise here and here and here. In this case I made it work by keeping the dissector, the pole, the same value as the tree so that it did not prominently show the near mid composition split.

Then deciding the distribution and the balancing of the warms and cools; the front of the building cool, the back warm, via the light (which probably wasn't actually working since I doubt there was power to the site). But in making an image, changes can be made to strengthen an idea or composition, so on it went. With the focus on the lower right corner, typically another design no-no, the taller tree was lit by another warm but unseen light source, to set up a diagonal and give it balance.100

Click 'Oil Plant' label below for more from this series
Click on image for larger view