Night Eyes

"Tree Nocturne (Rooftops)"    SOLD

oil on panel, 2010
5" x 4" (12.7cm x 10.16cm)

This painting is loosely based on the view from my balcony. So it is painted from memory, the cousin of imagination.

Having seen the view many times I resisted the temptation to run back and forth while painting. I allowed myself to take liberties in the interest of composition etc., and that freed me up to work on the image without the restraints of the actual view.

I shaped the tree mass to lean left, framing it within the power lines and the collective curve of the rooftops climbing the hill. A lower light than many of my other nocturnes so the lights from the windows show brighter and appear as eyes peaking over the rooftops.69
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Crushed By The Sun

"Warehouse Rooftop (w/ Palm)"

oil on panel, 2010

5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

A sky so bright it hurts your eyes. A blazing hot day, a hazy horizon. Looking towards the sun, the vertical planes are nearly all silhouette. Only the horizontal planes show.

Even the industrial, the subject itself, as hardy as it is... may very well be subordinate sometimes. Our associations with dark tones may represent strength, power, weight, but here they're crushed by the sun, the warehouse pressed below the horizon, into the earth by the heat of the summer, that unforgiving heat.

It's the bright, nearly white sky that dominates, despite the anchored darks.68

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Update-Previous Post

*I found a better photo of the painting "Power Pole #10(w/ rooftop)" under the post heading ' Chilly Biting Air ' in the May archives.

Bleached White Sky

"Oil Plant Roof Detail"

watercolor on paper, 2010

9" x 12" (22.86cm x 30.48cm)

For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE

Like my previous post, this subject is utility over beauty. Or at least inherent beauty.

So in this painting my concerns were about color and design.

A limited palette of mostly blue and brown with touches of grey and black.

Backlit and a bleached white sky helped give this image the contrast needed for a more abstract composition.

The cooler, darker blue and black provide a solidity for the heavy forms, but it's the accents of burnt sienna, the warmer blue in the vertical shadows and the light blue strip across the bottom that give the image some life.41

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Chilly Biting Air

*Updated image above

"Power Pole #10(w/ Rooftop)"    SOLD

oil on panel, 2009

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

From my Power Pole series, done at the end of 2009. The color here is a bit off, the painting has deeper tones, especially the blue background. With the deeper tones the image has that feel of the chilly, biting air of a cold December day, with only the slightest of warm tone/color to it.

Like others in the series, the wires zinging about provide that controlled chaos that draws me to this subject, but in this case what caught my eye was the pyramid shaped roofline and the sliver of building at the left that stabilized the chaos. And again, I love the simple, fundamental arrangement of shapes making up the composition.35

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*Update- I found a better photo of this painting since it was originally posted, although curiously enough I photographed it before I signed it, which I rarely do.

It is however more faithful to the painting itself. Generally, the colors are not as raw. Like I said in the text, this shows the deeper and richer tones as well as the more textural application of paint, giving me the 'heavy' skies I favor.