Downtown Streets oil painting
on Jan 05 by alinquist55
This cityscape shows the buildings and pedestrians in a downtown view, canvas size: 22" x 28"
DOWNTOWN STREETS, Canvas Size: 22” X 28”
This is a classic cityscape. It shows several tall buildings along a corner of a downtown intersection. Near the bottom of the painting, along the streets, cars, a bus and pedestrian traffic can be seen. The sky is a vivid blue. In the left foreground is a traffic light. A few of the buildings look modern while others have an Art Deco feel to them.
When I started to paint more often, I looked for views outside of my neighborhood and started painting downtown. One summer, I took a series of Mondays off from work and painted four pictures at a variety of settings in the downtown area. I gave one painting to my wife and the other three sold fairly quickly. The next year I continued with a few more downtown paintings, all done in the late afternoon.
Generally, I don’t provide the geographic details of where I paint because I have found that it changes the way people view my work. When I started showing locally, I found that people became very parochial about the locations of my paintings. A person could show a lot of interest in a painting until they found out that it wasn’t the neighborhood that he had hoped it was.
I will say that my easel was propped up on the side steps of the city library. From that view, I had a good place to view the downtown. On my far left is, of course, the library, built in the very early 1900’s. Across the side street, behind the traffic light, is a brand new condo that was built after they leveled the very old and decrepid strip of buildings that had stood there for decades. Far beyond those two buildings is a tall building from the Art Deco period. If I am not mistaken, the dark, reddish building, just right of center, with the flag on top, is also an Art Deco building. On the far right is something newer, postwar and Modernish.
What I like of this painting is the smaller details along the bottom. I like the crosswalks and the traffic light. I like the shadows that fall from the right. I like the cluster of traffic along the near bottom right. Most of it is compressed into a small space, but I like the look and feel of it. I also like the people clustered around the bus stop, especially the heavyset woman. Her white top shows contrasts that are not picked up in the other two bus patrons, as one is in shadow and the other wears dark green.
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