Long Beach street scenes

Downtown Long Beach is pretty nice. There are many interesting buildings with great shapes, it is pedestrian friendly and has quite a few independently owned stores. All in all, a great place to find painting material. There is a high degree of mood in the city streets, especially with the sun lower in the sky. I hardly dare mentioning that this is January!

Long Beach Glow, 2011 ::: 18″ x 14″ : 45.7 cm x 35.6 cm
Posted in the California, USA gallery

I was trying to capture the shape of the buildings, without going into much detail. The goal was to get a feel of the place, do some studies and come back at different times of the day. It is amazing how different a place feels when you go there morning vs. afternoon! There is a clock tower there I would really like to paint, bustling city streets underneath. I wasn’t able to find a good view point and got tired from all the walking. There is always a next time!

Ocean Boulevard, 2011 ::: 15″ x 12″ : 38.1 cm x 30.5 cm
Posted in the California, USA gallery

Painting these was a lot of fun. The backdrop of buildings was done wet-in wet, dropping different pigments in and letting it do its thing. Sometimes I change the angle of my board or tilt it left and right to achieve a certain effect. I particularly like the intense glow in the second one, right hand side. It is just a mix of yellow and orange and pops so well because there are blue tones underneath and next to it! The figures are important, but not overly so. I didn’t spend much time on the cars on the right and I think I like that. The cars on the lefthand side feel almost a bit overworked, I wish I would have given them the same treatment. Overall, I like where this is going, as I am getting more and more loose. I am really less and less interested in painting any sort of detail.

Stay tuned, more to come!

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Windy downtown

That’s what I remember most about this location sketch: the wind almost blew my easel away. Probably one of the main reasons some of my lines look a bit shaky and squiggly….hahaha.

It’s really a challenge going downtown to paint. First of all, you don’t exactly know where you’re going to find a good view. Sometimes you see something driving around, but there is just no way to stop. Then there is the traffic and, of course, where do you park? There are parking lots left and right but it’s usually at least $8 or more for parking. Pretty steep for a starving artist. I ended up parking in a lot but I found one that only charges $4 after 4pm. Good deal.

This view I found at a place called Weller Court. I was immediately attracted by the old City Hall and the way the light bounces around on it in the late afternoon. I might do a bigger studio version of this. I just love the light within the shadow side of the building, something that does not come out right in a photograph. In fact, City Hall always looks completely white in photographs and in reality it is an off-white, almost beige, giving it much warmer hues.

I painted this in a pedestrian zone, so I got lots of people looking and some commenting. I am trying to get used to this some more. I wanted to put a person in it so I took pics of various people walking by. It’s a bit of  “cheating” I do to have a reference on the little camera screen. People walk by so quickly, it’s hard to do a sketch in just a few seconds.

I will definitely go back to do more. I love all the old buildings and dramatic light situations that can be found downtown. I hope you like it!