June 4th Portland or Bust

Page 2 My City Scape

One option is my city scape...

This would be fun to do.  It would be a challenge.  These are good thoughts.

I have never painted a city scape before.  It would not be the best match for my existing works.  These are not so good thoughts.

It would be a good chance to expand my works, maybe lead me in a new direction.  Hmmmm.  Lets do some color studies:

My City scape color concepts

I did the upper left sketch first.  I did it with oil pastels.  I usually do my color studies with colored pencils, digital, white out, markers, and acrylics.  I don't use oil pastels but I have always kept them in my drawer for "just in case".  I struggled with the first sketch until I figured out how to utilize the pastels.

So I did a second color study - upper right.  This one was funner but it made me think.  Portland has some cool bridges.  It would be cool to incorporate some bridges.  I gotta have Mt. Hood in there.  I grew up with this mountain looming in the distance my entire young life.  To me this is the most beautiful mountain ever.  Of course I gotta paint it.  In this sketch the bridge is taking away from the mountain.  What's my focus here?  The city, the mountain or the bridge.  I'm getting lost.  To add to the confusion I remember Portland with a lot of brick.  I remember it as a red city. I don't know why. I'm not liking the blue tone now. I needed to focus.  Should I paint another sketch?  Na, let's look up some reference pictures of Portland.

This is when I redrew the bottom image.  I'm gett'in the buildings more in line and correct.  But now it looks different.  It's not my impression, it's not my feeling of Portland.  It's just a sketch based off what I see in pictures.   I'm going to Portland to visit old friends and family in July.  Lets wait on this painting.  Let's take our own reference shots, check out the bridges, and see the true color of the city for what it is.  I need to get my impression back on, then I'll come back and paint a dozen pictures of Portland.  Yea. let's do that!  I'm going to Seattle too.  Maybe I'll paint that place too.

I think I'm changing the fate of all my other images I decided to wait on right now.  See how that works?  I just had a new grey hair pop out of my scalp.  Yikes!

Now I'm down to three choices.

Have a good Day!

Larry