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Tag: urban

Flood Reflections at Rutherford-Sayre Park, Chicago

Flood Reflections at Rutherford-Sayre Park, Chicago. 24 x 24 inches, acrylic on wood. 2020

I finished this painting and I’m feeling pretty good about it. The goal was to paint 2 foot square acrylic version of the very small gouache painting I made last year (below), using only the painting as a reference rather than the original photo reference. I’ve hung it up in the house to spend some more time with it. It’s got a great presence.

Next up I’ll be trying this scene again, same size, but directly from the photo (with some new restraints). My thinking on that here.

Flood Reflections at Rutherford-Sayre Park, Chicago. 7 x 7 centimeters, gouache on paper. 2019
Studio mess.
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Tree woes

One of the challenges in making this painting based upon the 7x7cm landscape I painted is that there are times when I need to use my imagination to add detail in service of the painting, rather than solely base my painting from the small source. I went into this tree with some measure of caution, but quickly got wrapped up in the detail and went way overboard. In the second image below you can see that the bare tree in the foreground lost it’s definition, particularly where it overlapped with the green tree behind it. As much as i would like each painting session to perfectly portray my vision, this didn’t. So late last night I went back in and started blocking out limbs and putting definition back into the tree. The trickiest parts will be cleaning up limbs that intersect the sky—i’m going to do as little of that as possible. The next pass will be focused on the underpainting of the green tree, then repainting the black limbs where they need to be cleaned up.

7. improvements
6. tree limbs and general overworking
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Chicago

Chicago (where the river splits). 7cm x 7cm, gouache on paper.
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Fog at dawn, Chicago

Fog at dawn, Chicago, lakeshore. 7cm x 7cm, gouache on paper.

I just love this painting. It really captures the moment, which happened after a downtown Grocer paste-up session before sunrise. I walked down to the harbor and along the lakeshore as the sun came up.

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Logan Square, Chicago

Logan Square, Chicago. 7cm x 7cm, gouache on paper.

This one is painted from a photo I took off of the back porch at a good friend’s place in Logan Square. It was a beautiful night.

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Sayre Park, Chicago

Sayre Park, Chicago. 7cm x 7cm, gouache on paper.

I just love the way this painting of a flooded field at Sayre Park turned out. This is my third daily painting.

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