The Anchor and Urban Clutter
The Anchor 28x26 Oil on linen. --SOLD This lovely painting was fun to produce. It is of a bar located on a fairly busy street and for the angle I wanted, I would have put myself at risk from traffic had I set up my easel where I needed to. So, early on Thanksgiving morning (though this is actually set at sunset), I set up my easel with a large drawing pad in the street. Traffic was nearly non-existent. I drew it sight size, took a few reference photos and later transferred it to the linen in the studio. For the sunset effect, I used a number of reference photos at various times to get the right light for the neon sign. In the process of exploring design and color possibilities, I realized I would need to forge my own sky, and eventually decided that gradating the light from near pinkish-white to a dark evening cast of blue would best convey the brilliance of the sign without losing the impact of the sunset. This had the added effect of creating a path for the eye to follow fr...