Adult Books

I painted the same location four years ago and have returned to it to give it another go using what I have learnt particularly over the past year in terms of painting and atmosphere. I am now renaming the first one "Adult Books 2" as this new one in my opinion is better. Looking back on the first one I am immediately unhappy with how literal I painted it, how I've painted the buildings too clean and tidy, the jarring green I introduced and basically how dead it all looks. This version gets across the general run-down feeling this area of Detroit has and I'm starting to introduce my mantras of "Lose Edges Join Shapes!" and "It's The Painting Not The Place" (see posts from earlier in the year about these). I have also put in an atmospheric sky that I have been playing around with for most of this year and I like the slightly  claustrophobic feel that it now has.
I want to start painting with thicker paint marks as well so these kind of old buildings with decaying paintwork etc are ideal. I based the whole picture around red as the red areas are the primary focus and used an analgous palette going each side of red towards oranges and yellows and purples and violets on the other side. 
I am very much drawn to the earlier American urban architecture that I saw as a child on TV shows which have a much more distinctive look than the modern anonymous buildings of today...the same goes for all the great American cars of earlier days compared to what you see today. The urban architecture of my own country, the UK, just doesn't seem to interest me that much!
This will be the first in a new series of Roadside America pictures that I started painting four or five years ago but maybe only now will I get some pictures that are nearer to what I'm looking for.
Oil on linen 16" x 12"
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Adult Books 2