Hiding The Change

Bond Street near the Gowanus Canal facing south usually presents sharp contrasts in light late in the day.  It's a place I love to visit, though, as the orange barriers indicate, it's changing so fast, it's starting to lose its appeal. The light and dark contrasts however hide this change.  6x8 oil on panel.

Even A Small Painting

Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn is a fascinating street: not too many pedestrians, except those who cross it at intersections, and lotsa cars, moving quickly.  I always get the impression that the drivers hate to stop at the red lights.  The broad streets in Brooklyn always offer plenty of sky to fill even a small painting.  6x8 oil on panel.

Under and Very Large

Under the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn is Hamilton Avenue, here seen headed in the southeastern direction.  I seem to find myself making small Brooklyns.  In this case a small painting of a very large structure.  6x8 oil on panel.

Plaza Island

Flatbush Avenue runs through (on the dotted line) Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Several other streets also approach or circle the plaza.  Fortunately, after one dodges the traffic, you can walk around and through the Soldiers' and Sailors' Arch.  Then you have to dodge the traffic again to get off the plaza island.  6x8 oil on panel.

Small Morning in Brooklyn

An early morning view of the corner of St. Marks and Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn from the wide sidewalk on the south side of the street.  This is another small painting: 6x8 oil on panel.

A Small Brooklyn

A small Brooklyn, depicting the corner of Franklin Avenue and Prospect Place.  Interestingly, there's a Taco truck at the corner.  This a late afternoon view.  8x6 oil on panel.

A Different Light

This time I kept the same position but put the lamp behind me for a different light source.   8x6 oil on panel.

What Next

Every now and then, when I'm not sure what to do next, I'll do a self-portrait.  This guy certainly looks like he doesn't know what's coming next.  I've often wondered about the self-portraits of Cezanne and Rembrandt.  It's not like they were doing them because there was a demand, unless the demand was a personal thing.  I can just imagine Madame Cezanne's reaction to seeing him working on a self-portrait.  8x6 oil on panel.

Fowey

The port town of Fowey (pronounced Foy) is on the coast of south Cornwall at the River Fowey.  The River Fowey is subject to tides, and this boat is sitting up river in the mud at low tide on a cloudy day (most days in Cornwall seemed cloudy).   6x8 oil on panel.

Wells, A Memory

Wells, Somerset, England.  The granular, abstract approach in the painting captures the impreciseness of  my memory.  9x12 oil on panel.

Polperro Two

The inner harbor of Polperro, a small fishing village in southern Cornwell, is well stocked with parked boats.  I read that this place was once a smugglers' capital, but now mainly attracts tourists.  When I was there, it was not very sunny, unfortunately, but at least the tide was in.  9x12 oil on panel.

Padstow

Padstow is an old harbor town on the north coast of Cornwall.  9x12 oil on panel.

Polperro

A souvenir of the ancient fishing village of Polperro in Cornwall.  These boats are in the inner harbor, protected by a large wall with a gate.  The buildings were whitewashed in the 20th century since all the 19th century photos in the local museum show them without the white.  9x12 oil on panel.

Flatbush Barrels

The eighth Flatbush painting: a rare moment when the sidewalk was empty of people, though it is populated by traffic control barrels.  To figure out what they are called, I found a website called Crowd Control Warehouse.  Sounds ominous.   They are colorful.

Flatbush Cyclists

This is the seventh 12x12 oil on panel painting in the Flatbush series.  I think I'll do one more and move on to other things, or other sizes.  I used to be a serious cyclist years ago.  I would not want to ride a bicycle anywhere near Flatbush Avenue today.  It's tough enough being a pedestrian.

Abstraction on Flatbush Avenue

What appeals to me about this view of Flatbush Avenue is how the sky in the middle background unites with the tee shirt in the middle foreground to form a u-shape.  One could say the same thing about the two u-shapes on either side as well, though the middle one is more distinct and the distances between the sky and tee shirt much larger.  It's this kind of relationship that a painter can make which is nearly impossible to see outside of a painting.

I've been reading a lot about the painter Delacroix lately.  The exhibition at the Met has spurred me on, though I've always had an interest in Delacroix since reading his journal years ago.  I like Delacroix because he used color and composition in a formal, abstract way even though his paintings are all about stories, whether myths, battles, Shakespeare, etc.  His formal methods are seemingly hidden, and simultaneously right there for all to see.

The painting is 12x12 oil on panel.

Flatbush Revelation

These Flatbush Avenue paintings have become revelatory for me as I work on them loosely and comfortably.  The experience of walking in the city is always one of sharp contrasts, simultaneous attractions, and distractions.  Everywhere you look there's too much.  Turning that experience into paint is what I'm trying to do.  This one is also 12x12 oil on panel.  I'm running out of square panels.