Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Alla Prima: Park Avenue, New York City (Oil, 9 x 12)


This is the last painting I did in New York on this trip. It snowed 8 -12 inches yesterday and temperature has dropped to single digit. I simply didn't want to fall sick again before I board the plane back to Florida, so I decided to clear all the paint from the paint box before it hardened. When I opened the box, I realized there was quite a bit of paint there. I hated to waste paint. Then suddenly I remembered that in my morgue there was a  picture of Park Avenue, which I took when I was out of the MET quite a few days ago on my way to Lexington Avenue to take the subway. Right in the middle of crossing the street, I was so fascinated by the view with the effect of light: vehicle headlights, street lamps, lighted windows, lit smoke in the street, store signs, etc. that when I got to the other side of the street, I immediately took out my camera and went crossing back the street to take the picture. I planned to paint it and now it was good time to do. So I did it this afternoon. As I was painting, I had in my mind Jennifer McChristian's paintings of evening views and Jeffrey Watts teaching about brush strokes.

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