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Working on several color studies for larger cityscape paintings, this is a study of a simple street scene in downtown Louisville. Easily identifiable are the twin Waterfront Plaza Office Towers in the upper background. Located on Main Street and situated between the Galt House and KFC YUM Center, their red roofs are a beacon for navigating the downtown waterfront area. However, for this painting, they serve as merely accents. The “story” is the light on the street and buildings created by darker shadows. Even the closer buildings on Market St. are rendered in a loose fashion creating a background for the calligraphic marks of the poles, wires, specks of color and shadows. Value and color studies are important to creating art, especially when working in watercolor where correcting can be a challenge. It is a chance to evaluate, discover possibilities and make adjustments prior to starting a larger painting. As far as this study goes, if I decide to turn this into larger painting, I feel I would like to increase the light on the closer buildings by keeping them slightly lighter from the outset and then building up color. I may change the street view slightly, especially since I'll have more space with a larger painting. I would show a little more of the street in the background, adding a vehicle or two and smaller figures. I also would like to make more of the sky area. It is a large space and should be a little more interesting. What I would hope to keep from this study is the overall feeling in the painting and general color scheme. I like the pop of darks and the figure coming into the painting from the shadow. How about you? Do you make value sketches or color studies prior to a painting? Do you have any suggestions or comments for this color study? I welcome your thoughts as always! [...]

Louisville is proud of its hometown heroes.  We have large banners on the sides of buildings with Louisville's famous; individuals from sports and entertainment figures to court justices and bourbon entrepreneurs.  This impressionistic painting is a view down Main Street.  On the building on the right is a banner with a photo of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson of Major League Baseball fame.  Both inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, they played for the Dodgers where their friendship and mutual respect helped begin the crossing of racial barriers in sports.  Pee Wee Reese went to duPont Manual High School [...]

This is an example of a successful painting in spite of going to the sink with it!  In my classes we laugh about "going to the sink" because we know this is a desperate measure to save a painting.  It doesn't always work but in this case it did.  I had painted the background working my way forward and I had made too much of one of the buildings on the left.  It was too much of a distraction from the main focal area on the street.  So, to the sink I went, taking a scrubbing brush with me.  Under the [...]

For art students and lovers out there, this is an example of a "warm" painting (yellows, oranges, pinks)  with "cool"  accents (violets and blues).  When painting a busy scene such as this, it is easy to put in too much or try to put everything in exactly as it is.  To create harmony, I tried to limit my palette and simplified, not only the colors of the buildings, limiting them to a few color combinations, but also the structure of the buildings.  I added a few key shapes and identifiable landmarks and left the rest to the imagination.  I knew that [...]