"Fire Escape", 26.5" X 20" watercolor

Fire Escape by April M. Rimpo

As is true for many of my city-scapes, Fire Escape is primarily about interesting patterns.  Fire Escapes provide a natural repetition of pattern.  The windows adjacent to the fire escape provided additional repetition.  Fire Escape was also a play with negative shapes.  

Fire Escape

watercolor

26.5” X 20” image

34" X 28" brushed silver frame

$1195

Donated to the 2015 Collector's Choice  Art Auction held by the Maryland Federation of Art to help fun this non-profit organization

Many watercolorists seem to be drawn to fire escapes as a subject for their painting.  I had some photographs I had taken over the years, but every time I looked at them I struggled with how to do something different.  I had cropped them into what I thought were interesting design patterns, but that was not enough.  Finally I thought about inverting the values so the darks and shadows became the lights and the light colors became the darks.  Once I started to play with that idea then I could focus on a color scheme for the darks without being caught up in realistic colors.  It no longer mattered whether the building color was believable, since nothing was “normal”.  At that point my color inspiration had been freed from the mundane. 

When I think of the city I think of pale blues and grays, but now I felt free to explore richer blues and purple tones.  I wanted a restricted color palette so I stayed with an Analogous palette.   Cerulean was only used in a few of the lighter passages and in the floor of the landings.  I did branch out slightly from this palette in some of the lighter gray and beige passages.

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2015 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.