Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City finished

As I reached the end I realised that I did'nt like the water tower; it was a distraction and drew too much attention to itself within the composition so I painted it out and I am relieved that I did! I also changed the sky colour to a lighter and warmer hue. I was able to get the article to the magazine before my deadline and I believe that it will be in next month's issue.

Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City sixth day

I made a determined effort today to get in the left side of the picture. The blue of the sky is looking better against the sunlit buildings now and will probably only need a slight adjustment when everything else is painted in. I will also make a final decision on the shadow colour shortly. The sloping street was decided right from the start as I wanted to vary the very vertical/horizontal composition, this at least introduces a subtle diagonal.

Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City fifth day

I am working on different areas of the picture as I go along. The cinema is now ready for the final highlights, shadows and washes of green for the shade area. After that I need to sort out the left side of the picture and paint in the diner.

Monday Afternoon Session - figure painting

Here is the better of the two paintings I did at the Sussex County Arts Club session on the 14th May. The model, Lucy Potts (aka "The Divine Ms Potts" - Paul Cemmick), had brought along a motorbike helmet as her prop.....which was interesting. As ever, I am trying to finish a painting in the 50 minutes available including background.

Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City fourth day

I have now put in some darks so that I can gauge how light to make the sunlit surfaces and how dark to make the shadows on the buildings. I am leaving the shadows alone and will come back to them when I have all the dark areas in. I want to try and get across the dazzling light of a summer afternoon, everything else is subordinate to that idea. That blue sky is the wrong colour too!

Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City third day

I spent most of the morning changing some things in acrylic. I decided to reinstate the glass fascia on the cinema façade to add more variety to the buildings, tweaked the building at left and put in some telephone wires to break up the verticals and to emphasize the triangle-lying-on-it's-side compositional device that I am employing. Hopefully tomorrow I will start getting some oil paint down.

Artists & Illustrators magazine - Summer In The City second day

Acrylic underpainting

I have put down a rough acrylic underpainting to get an idea of how it is to look and to start ironing out any elements of the composition that I don't think are working. I think the figure needs to be bigger and should be holding a white umbrella and the blue sky should be darker for instance. I am also concerned that everything could start to look "bitty" so I must make sure that the buildings have a coherent design that holds up across the whole painting. Tomorrow I paint the first oils, then we shall have a better idea as to how things are going.