Storage Yard Nocturne

"Storage Yard Nocturne (Palms)"
watercolor on paper, 2013
9" x 6" (22.86cm x 15.24cm)
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Direct link to painting here

The storage yard is inadvertently becoming a series. Something I did not plan but this is the third and I have my mind on a couple others at some point.
Here are the 1st and 2nd.

Industrial settings are odd sometimes. You will see things that you won't find in suburban areas. Here two streetlights, one a warm sodium and the other a cool white light, right next to each other. Even though the orange sodium light is really lighting the storage yard it is still amusing they are side by side. It also made a nice dramatic cast shadow against the gate and driveway.

For me I like the way I was able to play the warms and cools against each other in such a vertical format.
Although this is a real site I made some changes, as I always do, to make a stronger composition. It was fun designing the shapes of the palms. I also added the stack of steel jutting up from the left, the power wire and changed the building.247

* I am still having difficulty with some images uploading in blogger. The image quality if off a little but is the best I could get.
It's random, some days it works fine, other days it's dreadful (and frustrating).

The image on DAILY PAINTWORKS is better.

**I have updated this post with a 'fixed' photo. This is how it should have looked in the first place.

Periscopes

"Approach to Gerald Desmond Bridge"

oil on panel, 2009

3.5" x 5" (8.89cm x 12.7cm)

private collection

A bridge in the LA Harbor. I like this view, late in the day, for it's dark blue, almost black, approach. The bridge itself has an almost jewel-like appearance with it's perforated silhouette against the golden sky.

I also choose this over a more uninterrupted but typical view because the light poles punch into the sky like periscopes from a submarine. Their different orientations giving them an anthropomorphic manner, as though they are looking around. A common sight in industrial/machinery subjects if you're paying attention.

This is what I see and what I look for when searching for image subjects. Something slightly different. Now the painting is not solely about the bridge.48

Click on image for larger view