Posts tagged ·
cityscape
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The streets of Toledo are shaded by canvas sails and lit by hanging lanterns.
This is old town Caceres.
This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
Setenil de los Bodegas of Cadiz Province, Spain is one of the more interesting pueblos blancos of Andulacia. Unlike most pueblos blancos it occupies either ridge of a valley rather than a hilltop. Many of the houses are semi-troglodyte, occupying shallow caves in the valley walls. One street includes a natural tunnel.
The view in this painting is from our apartment porch in Setenil looking across at the old castile.
The Art Institute of Chicago, both live and in reflection.
This is downtown Chicago on The Loop.
This painting sold before I could post it, but prints are still available.
My husband, daughter, and I spent a pleasant morning walking through the Le Marais district in Paris, on our way to the Pompiduo Modern Art Museum. The Le Marais was once inhabited by the French aristocracy and later become center of the Jewish community in Paris. Post WWII, it is once again inhabited by traditional Jews. I found the Jewish men’s back hats and suits striking against the back drop of more casually dressed tourists.
This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a art print.
Despite the lack of canals and only a single bicycle, this is Amsterdam on a summer evening. But it could be anyone of a number of European street scenes.
The title is a bit of a pun. I painted the picture from a series of snapshots, and girls in the foreground are sharing a snapshot. I hope the atmospheric nature of the painting has little to do with snapshots.
There is still a Chinatown in Victoria, B.C., but it’s only a few blocks long now. The Fantan Cafe dominates the street. It’s still a fun and colorful place to visit. The entrance arch remains, and they still hang Chinese lanterns.
Another Italian painting, this time of Lucca. The view is from a window in yet a fourth tower. I will have to paint the tower we climbed. The oak trees growing from it’s roof give it a surreal feel.
The glass pyramid as seen through one of the Louvre’s arches.
The Art Institute of Chicago again, this time from the inside. While my daughter gift shopped, I took a whole series of photographs of the two doors to Michigan Ave. The great doors with their iconic lamps and the people silhouetted in front fascinated me.
I love city light. The shafts of light created by openings in the tall buildings, the reflectivity of building and pavement, and the flat surfaces for shadows all lead to one thing—drama.
This particular drama is the long shadows and the warm glow of a Chicago winter morning. The crowd is up early and waiting for The Art Institute of Chicago to open up. The crowd and bus hide one lion, but the other can be seen peeking out from behind the traffic light.
I took my daughter college looking this Spring. As part of that trip we got to stay a couple nights in downtown Chicago. This is Wabash Avenue just North of Adams and about a block from The Art Institute of Chicago. The mother and child are just passing Palmer House Hotel. A light snow had just melted and by our Oregon standards it was nippy.
We visited the Cinque Terre or Five Lands in 2012. Clinging to the the cliffs about the Italian riviera, these charming wine and fishing villages are an Italian national park and a tourist magnet during the summer. I painted Monterrosso, the largest of these villages last year. This is Riomaggiore, the smallest of the Cinque Terre, and the first village many tourists see. It was the first village we visited. And yes we were charmed by it’s pocket sized harbor and steep narrow streets. But these first paintings are not of the houses on the harbor cliffs, but the vineyard hills.
These paintings have sold, but you may still purchase fine art prints here.
Florence is worth visiting just to walk the streets. The twisting turning little alleys are endlessly fascinating. The light pours through in dramatic shafts between the buildings spotlighting slivers of streets and buildings.
This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a fine art print.
The Cinque Terre, or five lands do not have much in the way of tourist sites. They are the tourist site. The five coast hugging Italian villages feature brightly colored townhouses, residential streets made up of nothing more than a flight of stairs, beautiful coastal trails, and tight picturesque beaches. In July of last year they were also hot as blazes and ought to have been uncomfortable, but the narrow shady streets, and cool ocean made up for the heat. Oh, and there was gelato too, lots of handmade gelato.
We visited the four villages actually on the coast, and dipped our toes in the water at more the one beach. We also climbed innumerable stairs just for the fun of climbing and looking down. This painting is of Monterosso, the largest of the five, and the one with the widest flattest beaches. We stopped to sample the gelato at the cafe. We ate it while watching our girls play in the warm surf.
Another painting taken from our trip to Europe last summer. This charming little street is close to Nortre Dame, but at least a little off the beaten path. Like many of the streets in the area, it curves charmingly.
I poured this painting in much the same manner as July in Florence. The process is much like batik and leads to clear color passages that make buildings glow.
Or purchase a fine art print.
Old town Florence streets are shaded lanes so narrow they almost feel like tunnels running at irregular angles to each other. The view at the end of the tunnel is often as not another narrow lane cutting the street off at not quite a right angle. But here there the streets open into plazas with startling sunny views of churches, cathedrals, bridges, train stations and castles. Walking from our apartment, the Duomo complex burst upon us in much the same way–the light at the end of the tunnel.
Another poured watercolor painting, a process much like batik.
Florence in heat again. This time it’s the beautiful arcade running along the Arno between the Uffzi and the Ponte Vecchio.
I drove into Corvallis a little early a couple mornings ago and spent the extra time before opening the gallery taking pictures of downtown. The sun was out, but it had just recently rained and the streets were still wet. The light was gorgeous. This little alley is just a couple blocks from Art in the Valley. The reflected light running up the damp pavement caught my eye.
I used a limited palate, but not as limited as my last cityscape: cobalt blue, phthalo blue, raw sienna and quinacridone brown madder. The vast bulk of the painting is brown madder and phthalo blue.
[This painting sold February 23rd 2012, but you may still purchase a print from Fine Art America.]